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SPECIES SELECTION - Bamboos are a
primitive sub family of grasses that include over 70 genera and 1,200 species worldwide.
They are native to all continents except Europe, Antarctica & the Arctic. The various
species are adapted to a wide climatic range from cold temperate to tropical. For any
climatic region, except for the extremely dry or cold, there are potentially 100's of
species to chose from. In Australia there are 5 native species and the number of species
& varieties available from nurseries has gone from 20 -30 in the early 80's to well
over 200 today and more are being introduced all the time. Of the 1,200 species worldwide
only about 100 rank in the 'Elite Bamboos' being significantly useful.
Care should be taken when selecting species for the garden
or farm. All bamboos, both clumping and running forms, use an increasing amount of space
as time goes by. Unless they are utilised or very much appreciated, they can become a
liability requiring unrewarded effort to control their spread, especially if space is
limited. We have realised this over the years and have culled most of the purely
ornamental species from our collection without really compromising aesthetics; they are
all beautiful and many of the important commercial species are outstandingly so. In a
small yard it can often be more advantageous to grow a large clumping variety that
produces edible shoots and useful culms than a small ornamental type. Placed in a central
position like the middle of a lawn it can provide all the benefits of a feature tree while
being kept in check and looking good by the harvest of shoots and culms. The leaves make
an excellent 'seed free' mulch for annual gardens.
VILLAGE BAMBOOS - We specialise in
'village bamboos' i.e. those species that the rural folk from countries with a long
history of bamboo utilisation have selected and cultivated for food, craft and
construction purposes. We are in the process of collecting superior clones of these
species from the various regions around the world that may best suit our warm-temperate to
sub-tropical climate. These useful species have the potential to make a real contribution
towards protecting native forests by providing an alternative material to timber. Bamboo
can produce 10 times more cellulose material per hectare per year than even fast growing
trees like Pinus radiata, it doesn't require heavy machinery to harvest and is user
friendly. With simple tools it can be fashioned into a thousand useful items from
toothpicks to houses. In recent years there has been a lot of industrial development -
paper, plywood and particle board products made of bamboo; even sheets of corrugated
roofing! Other uses of bamboo as living plants include nutrient uptake in waste water,
erosion control, windbreaks, hedges & fodder.
With 20yrs of experience with bamboo I have trialed over 150
species to get to our present list. Each year we decide to discontinue certain species for
various reasons – pest or disease prone, inferior timber, bad growth form..
etc. So if its not on this
list it is very likely not worth growing. As time goes by the bamboo list will be
more & more refined.
CLUMPING & RUNNING MODES OF GROWTH -
As with other grasses generally, there are basically two modes of growth in bamboos,
clumping & running with some variations. Clumping or 'sympodial' bamboos have short
fat rhizomes that form clumps. How tight or open a clump is depends on the length of the
rhizome neck of the particular species. They are most commonly tropical to sub-tropical
with some of them able to tolerate some frost. They produce shoots in late summer and
autumn.
Running or monopodial bamboos have long adventitious
rhizomes that are cylindrical and segmented like the culms. These bamboos give rise to
evenly spaced culms some distance apart. The larger species form groves that resemble
timber pole forests, the culms are very straight and because of the light conditions only
have branches on the upper portions. They are temperate climate plants that tolerate many
degrees of frost and even annual snow cover. They produce shoots in spring and grow best
in frost prone situations. In fact, they become stunted in warm situations with
insufficient winter chill. Their spread can be controlled in various ways…..by
natural boundaries such as:- hard roads; reasonably permanent water courses; grazing or
timely mowing. Installing underground rhizome barriers of concrete, conveyor belt
rubber, or the like can also control them. The barrier should be dug to 1m below the
surface or a hard infertile subsoil layer and allowing at least 100 mm to protrude above
ground. In dry areas with access to water they will only grow within the limits of the
irrigation. The genus PHYLLOSTACHYS are the most useful of the running bamboos and the
only ones that we grow and sell.
Recommended Reading
* 'The Bamboos', F A McClure, Smithsonian Institute
Press. 1993. Originally published as 'Bamboos - A Fresh Perspective' Harvard University,
Boston, 1966. An essential classic covering botany and horticulture.
* 'The Book of Bamboo', David Farrelly, Sierra Club
Books, San Francisco, 1984. The first extensive sourcebook of bamboo, including
information on cultivation, curing, its many uses, cultural & historic roots and
descriptions of many species.
* 'A Compendium of Chinese Bamboo' Chief Editor Zhu
Shilin Ma Naixun Fu Maoyi, China Forestry Publishing House, 1993. Descriptions,
distribution and uses of 500 species with over 400 colour photographs.
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