Black bamboo hardiness

I just ordered P. nigra bamboo seeds. They are rated to zone 7. Has anyone grown them in zone 6? And do the shoots need to be boiled twice before consuming?

I was going to try the same in zone 6 but didn't bother as I found some other local varieties that are growing here and I managed to get lots of rhizomes at a value price. I'm curious to see if you can get the seed to germinate though as I've read there are a lot of tricksters out there selling bogus bamboo seed. Good luck!

I am in zone 6b and I have some black bamboo growing that was planted from the previous owners. It doesn't seem to spread too much but they have grown pretty tall, probably about 8 ft tall and about 1 1/2 inches thick. They seem to be doing well from what I can tell. I moved to this house 8 months ago so I really don't know much about them. I haven't done anything with them except add some mulch in the fall. We had a real mild winter this year but we had a cold spell where it got to 0 and one little blanket of snow. It doesn't look like the cold we had made much of a negative impact. I have another type of green bamboo that grows shorter but seems to spread a bit more. Not sure about eating them either.

Hi Patrick,

Welcome to Permies.

edit: I'm sorry, this information was not relevant. I'll be following your thread, because I'm interested in growing bamboo from seeds but have never done so.

Black Bamboo can be grown in hardiness zone 6, but there is some nitty-gritty:

- it reaching 15 feet tall (4.6 meters) only, instead of 25-30 feet (7.6 — 9 meters) as in warmer zones;
- at temperatures below 10 °F (-12 °C) the foliage of black bamboo can be easily damaged by strong wind;
- foliage loss occurs at about 0 °F (-17 °C) up to complete top kill of canes at -10 —  -15 °F (-23 — -26 °C).

The hardiest Phyllostachys bamboo last I knew is P. aureosulcata, so named because the sulcus- the flat channel just above a pair of branches is yellow. It has been grown in Chicago, but around the lakes it will on a bad winter kill to the ground, and gdenerally won't get as big as it does further south. Another form is the reverse- yellow culm with green sulcus, and a third is merely green.