Bamboo diary: Dividing Phyllostachys nigra

Last summer I bought my first bamboo. Of course, in our garden centers you don’t have much choice of what to buy. Usually you can find only Phyllostachys aurea or Phyllostachys aureosulcata f. aureocaulis, and of course Phyllostachys nigra. Sometimes you can also find some Fargesia. I decided for P.nigra, because of its dark black canes and light small green leaves.

I planted it in a rain container, from which I had cut of the bottom first. It is 70 cm tall, so that the bamboo wouldn’t escape. I buried the container into the ground, and left the upper edge just a little above the ground surface, so that I could see if I had got any running rhizomes. 

The buried contanier with bamboo.

In one year the bamboo has grown well and it has established quite nicely.

But some of the rhizomes have come out, and instead of finding their way back to the soil, they have shoot out their culms.

This spring I cut them down, and it looks like, that from these rhizomes, or - more likely - from their sleeping buds, new shoots have emerged. Today I dug around them, to see if they have their own roots yet. And they did. I took out two small plants and transplanted them. They didn’t have enough roots, so I had to shorten the culms, because of the balance between roots and leaves. For planting I used mixture of light humus, compost, and quartz sand, so that it wouldn’t get to sift when watering, and growing of the new roots would be easier. I put the young plant indoor, because of the hot sun outside, which would harm the just transplanted plants.

Now that the plants have been potted i have to cut some of their culms.

So, read you next time!

Uroš