sandy0225

Yesterday, I was hacking hardy yellow groove bamboo that is taking over that corner of the world from around my musa basjoo plant and I thought this wouldn't be something you'd think you'd have to do in Indiana!
I'd noticed that my oldest one isn't coming up as good as it should be, and I wondered if any of you had a similar problem with bananas and bamboo. Do you suppose just hacking off the top growth so the banana will get more light would help? Or am I looking at a major excavating job?

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Sandy Burrell



Northern Tropics Greenhouse
1501 East Fuson Road
Muncie, IN 47302
www.northerntropics.com


specializing in bananas, heirloom tomatoes and water gardening plants~
check out our new online store at our website!

Velutina

I just planted a garden next to a grove of yellow-groove bamboo. I had to pull out a lot of runners in order to work the soil. The cement next to the bamboo seems to be pushed up, perhaps from the bamboo. I wouldn't be suprised if the underground runners could do some serious damage to the banana corm.

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Adam

Steve in France

Hi Sandy , now your getting into my area of knowledge. Unless you have a large are for running Bamboo to grow and don't care how far it goes then you need to install Rhizome Barrier for running Bamboos. There was a debate about this, to me there is no more debate , barrier is the only way to go.A running Bamboo rhizome will grow through a Musa Corm like it was not there.
Also when selecting Bamboo for a Garden please research the best Bamboo for your location. The US seems to be covered in Ph Aureocaulis , there are so many better Bamboos available here. If you live in a more temperate area like Washington State or Oregon then there are many non running clumping Bamboos you can grow.
Have a look at these links
Here is the best guy in Europe , most , not all the Bamboos he grows are available in the US. Jos is a guy I know and trust for Bamoo info.
Bamboo nursery kimmei valkenswaard


I've not ordered from these guys but they have many of the rarer Bamboos available in the US. They know and trade with Jos in Europe.
Bamboo Garden Nursery

Barrier that Bamboo
Best of Luck
Steve

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Jozon

I grow my bamboo in raised beds with a 6" deep, shovel wide trench around the area I want to confine bamboo. When the bamboo roots spread across the mini moat in the fall, I cut them. No expensive barriers just simple maintenance. Good luck.

Steve in France

Barriers don't need to be expensive , I traded a few plants for 150 ft of Barrier.I was enough to do the whole garden and in effect it was free. The trench method works , but every year you are cutting off the rhizomes that will give you big growth in the long run .Rhizome's power up Spring growth there main job is to store energy produced from the plant after the new growth has leafed out . So from early to mid Summer on all the heat ,Sunlight of the growing season is stored for the next Spring. With a Barrier 90% of the Rhizome is turned back at the barrier and you retain the max energy storing material. Also it takes a Rhizome of three years of age to produce the huge culms on Timber Bamboos or indeed max growth on any Phyllostachys Bamboo.So if you cut off the running rhizomes you will be cutting out a large percentage of the future grow on your Bamboo.
There is a saying about buying new Bamboo, "You are buying what's in the Pot not what is above the pot", it means the future of your plant is under the soil , the condition and extent of the rhizome is way more important than the culm growth .
Later
Steve

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Jozon

For me growth is the problem not the goal. Eventually a bamboo will fill an area with a barrier and begin to show stress as it crowds itself. Rhizome pruning allows me to limit the size and vigor of the grove and keep it manageable. You may have gotten your barrier cheap but anyone that's priced barrier knows how expensive it can get. I'm only offering my experience of what has worked for me in my climate(z7 mid-atlantic) with the types of bamboo I grow(rubro, bissetti, aureosulcata, aurea, japonica and robert young.

Steve in France

Jozon , I'm happy to hear about your experience as a Bamboo nut myself
.I miss my Bamboos in France. And as my Bamboo friend Mark Buckley says "What works in my conditions may not work in yours". I agree barrier is expensive, I would have bought it if I did not get a deal as I have a medium size Garden in FRance and trenches were just not an option.I used stone walls on some sides of the Bamboo and a friend has use Cement path stones , 2 ft by 2ft. My friend in German just made a trench then put in the Cement sqares on end and filled the trench in. The odd rhizomes escapes but not many. I'd hate to have rhizomes punching through my Banana corms but here it's not a problem as I pot grow everything .
Common old Japonica is one of my favorite Bamboos , easy to control and looks great when grown well.
In France I grow some of the bigger Timber Bamboos and the goal is big culms.
I Barrier so I can save every bit of energy, I do culm prune out smaller culms which is not reccomended if you want big growth fast. I cut out small culms for two reasons, one, the grove looks nicer ,and two , a lot of Blades on the small culms are in full shade and are not adding much energy to the plant. It will take me 6 to 10 years to get huge culms on the Bamboo's I have , I'd rather do it in six years as I'm not getting any younger .
I get great growth rate as I mulch and water all the time. People think I'm nuts as I water even when it's raining , but what I say is go dig in your soil after a medium rainfall and in a dryish Summer the water will have only gone down an inch in the soil if that. Water water water is the key with Bamboos and many other Exotic plants.I water my Musa and such here twice a day on hot days.
In France some of my big Bamboos are , Phyllostachys 'Shanghai 3' , Phyllostachys vivax 'Aureocaulis' , Phyllostachys vivax 'Huangwenzhu Inversa' and Phyllostachys 'Parvifolia'. The mediums are Phyllostachys aureosulcata 'Aureocaulis' ,Phyllostachys aureosulcata 'Spectabilis' ,Phyllostachys nigra 'Hale' and a mystery Nigra clone with a black Sulcus. I also grow Semiarundinaria 'Fastuosa' and Fargesia 'Scabrida' , I have a bunch of the Yunnan stuff and a couple of Borinda's but I cannot say they are still alive until I visit the garden this Summer.Like I said I'm a bit of a Bamboo Nut
I love to grow Musa/Ensete next to Bamboo as they make each other look fantastic.
Later
Steve

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Jozon

My groves edge a 2 acre field and have room to run but I confine them to 10' x 50' heavily composted beds or 20' diameter circle. I've found this is a large enough area to allow the boo to size up and display its fine qualities. Our winters are mild, couple weeks in the 20's F but summers are long and hot here by the Chesapeake Bay (we flirted with 90 in October last year) the way running boo likes it. I had to laugh when u mentioned watering in the rain because I've done it as well(my wife just shakes her head). Our soil is heavy clay and rain can't penetrate it once its dried and baked hard. By the way, that mystery nigra clone may be "Megurochiku" (green nigra w/black sulcus).

Steve in France

First , sorry Sandy we seem to have gotten a little side tracked on your question , but I hope you feel you have some answers to work with :-)
Jozon it would be good to see your Bamboos and garden. Sounds like you have enough space.
If you have room for a P. Parvifolia I may have a division next year.
We are in Bethesda MD so we should not be too far from you. I should be getting a P. vivax 'Huangwenzhu Inversa' soon . I have one guy from DCTropics that will take some Bamboo from me when we leave , be good to have another place to drop off Big Boos. I'm pot growing my Bamboo at the moment but I'm thinking of getting a wooden Pallet and building a 4 ft by 4 ft grow box on top .That way the Bamboo can just go on the back of a truck when we leave for distant shores in a couple of years.
All must go when we leave and that should included a major collection of Musa and Aroids.I'm only growing three or four Bamboos here. I have a P.nigra that Brad of Needmore Bamboo kindly sent me as a gift.I cannot wait to see how my Nigra 'Hale' clone is doing in France.

Best Wishes Steve

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mskitty38583

just to keep bamboo contained in a certian area( i have done this and it works pretty well). get the biggest plastic container you can find and sink it in the ground( leave a 2-3 inch lip above ground bamboo will jump the lip of the pot) put some rocks(about 4 inches deep) in the bottom of the pot for drainage( dont use a pot with holes in the bottom the roots will run out of the holes) fill it with the dirt and then pot up your bamboo. or you can use this idea for bog bamboo. that way you can have the bamboo and keep it from growing where you dont want it to. jmo.

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