A friend has a huge stand of phyllostacus (spelling?) the one with black
stems, next to his pond/lake.

It is beginning to flower so will presumably die? Will this happen to
all other bamboos in the vicinity ( similar to ants swarming at the same
time in an area) or is the flowering local to one or two plants? He is
quite high up in the Chilterns, near Dunsmore on quite an open garden
(about 8 acres)

If it's flowering will the seed be viable and how best to propagate it
please.

Janet
--
Janet Tweedy
Dalmatian Telegraph
http://www.lancedal.demon.co.uk

On Fri, 6 May 2005 10:06:38 +0100, Janet Tweedy
wrote:

A friend has a huge stand of phyllostacus (spelling?) the one with black
stems, next to his pond/lake.

It is beginning to flower so will presumably die? Will this happen to
all other bamboos in the vicinity ( similar to ants swarming at the same
time in an area) or is the flowering local to one or two plants? He is
quite high up in the Chilterns, near Dunsmore on quite an open garden
(about 8 acres)

If it's flowering will the seed be viable and how best to propagate it
please.

Seed will be viable, but has some tricks:

1. You have to beat the local mice and rats to it.

2. It probably needs to be sown quite fresh - try putting the flat
underneath the plant and let the seed fall directly onto it.

3. A significant fraction of the seedlings may be albinos.

4. Seedling bamboo grows *very* slowly. About ten years ago,
Aruninaria murielae (it has another name these days) flowered here.
One volunteer seedling popped up in my garden (from about 12 fairly
big clumps) and has made the grade, but after that many years it's
still only about two feet high.

5. Don't know if bamboo seed needs chilling or will come up
lickety-split in response to warmth and moisture like other grasses.

I've read that you can help bamboos survive flowering by feeding and
watering, but I wouldn't bet on it.

--
Rodger Whitlock
Victoria, BC, Canada
to send email, change atlantic to pacific
and invalid to net

Hi - I'm In Preston, Lancashire and it looks as though my black bamboo is starting to flower as well - http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i1...oo/bamboo3.jpg
It's only a small clump at the moment and I have had it less than 2 years.

From what I have read on the 'net, the plant self pollenates, the seeds need to be fully ripe to give them the best chance of germinating, and they are ripe when ready to drop (shake them onto a tarpaulin)

As bamboos are mainly propagated by division, and only flower after many years (decades) there will be many clones of the same original stock out there. It seems they all carry the same biological clock and all flower at the same time.

As for saving the original plant, there seems to be two theories, neither of them are by any means certain of sucsess.
1 - feed very heavily during and after flowering with high nitrogen fertiliser - OR
2 - remove the flowering culms, dig up the rhizomes and chop into small sections and replant.

Some bamboos have resisted all attempts to rejuvinate the original plant after flowering, some will slowly recover on their own.

I think I am going to try method 1 because it's only a small plant anyway, and I want to try and catch as much seed as possible. So I've already started feeding with lawn food. We will have to see what happens.

[quote=Mr Whippy]Hi - I'm In Preston, Lancashire and it looks as though my black bamboo is starting to flower as well - http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i1...oo/bamboo3.jpg
QUOTE]

I have posted on the bamboo forum and it seems that it isn't P. Nigra - it is probably fargesia murielle (sp?)

See this post - http://www.gardenbanter.co.uk/showth...149#post632149

[quote=Mr Whippy] Sorry, I meant Fargesia nitida.