bamboo I.D.

[dylanholderman]

hey guys i was at a friends house a couple weekends ago and got to harvest some boo from his yard any idea on the species?
i'm in central/northern Ohio if that narrows it down at all.
the coloration varied, some were black like in the pic, a few were completely black but mostly they were a typical green color.

[Pat B]

Black bamboo?  One of the Asiatic varieties. It does seem to be a clumping type or it would be everywhere. I've seen other clumping type of bamboo used as a hedge.

[dylanholderman]

do you think its worth transplanting some? that friend is selling that house in  the next year or so.

[Pat B]

Find out for sure that it is a clumping and not spreading type. If it is you should be able to use a good garden spade to cleanly divide out a clump. Be sure not to cut back the culms or it will take a few years before the culms will grow that big again.

[dylanholderman]

any idea how much dirt they need? i'm thinking about putting them in a large steel garden box so that when i move again (potentially in the next year) i can just pick up the box and also i wont have to worry about containment.

[DC]

I think that if the box was big enough it wouldn't be "just pick up the box" I've decided that even clumping bamboo grows too big to make it worth it. It's nice to grow your own stuff but what I've grown has not been as good as Garden Stakes and now I have to try and get rid of this 5 yr old, 6' wide "clump" that is getting bigger every year. This fall I'm cutting them all and starting the long process of trying to get rid of the bamboo. I'm too old to dig it out so I'm just going to try to stress it out by continuous cutting. I'm not a proponent of growing your own bamboo. Especially when garden stakes are so cheap and work so well.