Bamboo diary: Fargesia nitida seeds

Today I have sowed my first bamboo seeds of Fargesia nitida. I brought them form Scotland, from Castle Kennedy Gardens, to be exact (on 29.6.2011). I got them totally by coincidence, when I went to see the gardens. The dying bamboo was visible from far away, and I knew it at that very moment, that this had to be a flowering bamboo. First I took some photos of it’s flowers and habitus, then I took some samples for herbarium, for my collection and after, I also took some flowers, which were already producing seeds, so I was hoping that I would get some seeds from them.

Flowers were already produceing seeds.

Dying clumps with last leafs.

I put them in a paper bag with silca gel, so that it wouldn’t get rotten or moldy . They were stored like that til now. Because the germination rate of bamboo seed falls rapidly, I just hope that I was not to late. I got 10 seeds out of 20 collected flowers. Their size was around 5 mm.

Bamboo seeds look like grain.

To sown them I have used a technique from David Crompton book Ornamental Bamboos.

So let’s see what I have done:

First I put peat-based light compost and filled the pots so, that compost was 2,5cm under the upper edge of the pot. I used mix of two bought composts for seedlings (Brill and Valentin). Then I sprayed the compost with water, so I could put the seed on a wet base.

So, I put 3 or 2 seeds per pot, covered them with 1 cm of compost and sprayed the compost again. I placed the pots in a room with a constantly warm temperature (20°C+), and is very bright, but not a direct sunlight.

Now I’m hoping for the best, which is that at the least 2 or 3 seeds will sprout. Based on the theory by Ted Jordan Meredith (Bamboo for Gardens), it should be from 2 to 3 weeks. I’ll keep you posted.

So, read you next time.

Uroš