planting bamboo

Hello


I know a place where bamboo is growing.
As Martin Crawford says almost all bamboo is eddible, I will try to nick some. It is growing out of their property and cousing 'problems' for the neighbours, so a polite request will be enough I suppose.

The problem is that I don't know how to do this best.
If I dig up a shoot and plant it in my garden, will it grow, or do I need more than just the shoot. How much of the root do I have to take? or is a little bit already more than enough.

I have been looking on the net, but I can't find anything usefull. They only tell me where I can buy it.


Thanks a lot!!!

Sounds like they have a runner, try to get as much root as you can. Or most bamboo can grow from just cutting off a mature stalk and laying it in a 3-4 inch deep trench. Im not an expert, but I usual leave some of the stems above ground.

If the plant is near your home, you might ask the owner if you could just harvest some of thier's. This would keep your garden free of the opportunistic plant. I like clumping verities of bamboo because it allows you to spread the plant as far as you want instead of it taking over what it wants.

I really want to use it for the shoots and for garden timber. Something that grows rampant is and advantage in that case I think.
This species runs away at about 2-3m/year but if you set it back every time, it doens't seem to run further away once cut down.

So I just ask if I can dig one up and that should work

4-5m sticks are not that easy transported, so if I can get a 1m shoot + some root, I can fix that in the bike trailer.

spring is the best time
where do you live
bamboo loves well manured soil

Tropical clumpers might be able to root from a stem, but runners need to have a good bit or root (rhizome). What zone are you located in? Bambooweb can identify the species for you, if you can get a picture of it and post it to the forums. I have 8 species of edible bamboos planted. This year will be their third year in the ground, and I expect some big upsizing to occur. You want to plant it as deep as it was when you dug it up and mulch it well. Manure and compost will get it going strong in the spring.

Might try a net search on "propagate bamboo".

If it were me, I would try for a more mature root stock, one with bigger taller stalks. To make it easy first cutt off the 4-5 m stalks then dig up as much of the roots as possible. This spring the root ball will send up new shoots. Next year to establish a larger area faster, start bending mature stalks to the ground and bury as many nodes as it takes to keep the stalk down. The next spring you'll have new shoots at each node that was touching soil.

Also, instead of saying "cutt off a mature stalk and lay it in a trench" I should have said, cut a section out of a mature stalk (at least 1" diameter) that contains 3 or 4 nodes. You wouldn't need the whole 4-5 m stalk, although the more nodes the more potential for roots and sprouts.

Anyway you go you'll most likely be successful, Bamboo is not known for stubborn propagation.

hope this is helpful,
Paul

Here's a good one, http://garden.lovetoknow.com/wiki/How_to_Propagate_Timber_Bamboo

I'm living in Belgium (Flanders, Campina)
If I pass by, I'll try for a picture. spring is still a few months away!

The cut out idea seems pretty nice.
The other one involves more digging between the roots of a mature oak, so a bit harder :p

Thanks a lot already!!

When digging it is useful to have a pair of loppers (long handled pruning shears). Most of the rhizomes seem to run around 15cm deep, and you can just clip them and it does less damage to the root ball. Growth is slow following transplant, so a deep mulch is nice to control competition.