No new culms from a 2+ year planting?

[glenn smith]

I purchased this black bamboo about twenty-eight months ago; it has done very little. No culms, a few leaves fall off and a few more grow back in spring.
Could I get it active perhaps by burying it sideways with only the leaves exposed?

glenn

[Mark Meckes]

Hi glenn,
This is usually an indication that any buds on the attached rhizome have lost their viability, and therefore has no ability to grow new offsets of rhizomes from which to grow new culms.
The same thing happened to a nigra that my wife planted on our hill years ago, and 2 culms grew for about 5+ years without growing any new shoots.

This has happened to me on the odd occasion in the past with Phyllostachys aureosulcata, when I've dug a healthy rootball, albiet the attached rhizome was beyond it's prime and all attached dormant buds had lost their viability.
Nonetheless if the rhizome had a good amount of healthy roots attached to it and a good rootball, the attached culms would grow a profusion of leaves, as this was the only place the plant could direct all it's accumulated nutritional reserves.
A plant can grow for some years like this.
Perhaps this could be a way to market a none running runner. ;)

Clumping bamboos are another story as many can produce new offsets off the base of their culms if the culm isn't too old.

A number of temperate species do have eyebuds at their culm base which may or may not be capable of producing new rhizome offsets.

I recently was told of someone acquiring a P. bambusoides 'Marliac' that did nothing for two years, then grew a small shoot on the 3rd year, so ... what can I say ... you never know till it's over.

Oh, and generally temperate bamboos can't be propagated using above ground culm cuttings, (unless anyone can prove otherwise) though this is achievable with many tropical species.

Mark

[glenn smith]

It will just have to vegetate away, then.
Then again, I have nothing to lose by repotting it!

Thank you for the info, Mark!

glenn

[Mark Meckes]

Then again, I have nothing to lose by repotting it!

Yes, you will then be able to check out the subterranean vigor (amount of, and health of rhizome roots at the perimeter of the rootball) and whether any rhizomes grew.
The plant does look like it still has some spunk. ;)

Mark

[cngodles]

Someone I know just got new shoots after 5 years of inactivity on a black bamboo.

[glenn smith]

Perhaps there is still hope.
If it does start up, I'll have guilt to deal with...I was at the same nursery I purchased it from a few weeks ago and mentioned the problem to the owner, she let me select another bamboo of the same price.

Glenn

[ShmuBamboo]

I have 4 Henons that were all but dormant for 2 years until this year. No new shoots, then this year 3 sent sent up 2-3 shoots each. One is still not shooting. It is nicely leafed out though, and I am not gonna toss it. It is surely creeping. I find that Nigra types (and Henon, the mother of all the Blacks) grows shoots in bursts, and then does little for a year or more. Seemingly they undergrow shoots, overgrow shoots, then undergrow and some shoots die back a bit... in smaller pots they tend to throw up one shoot a year at most. My brother has a black (Bory, we think) that was one tall culm (20 ft) in his yard for 3 years. Then it threw up some small shoots last year, 3-5 ft each. Then this year it threw up about a dozen tall shoots! The neighbors are nervous... they are about 20 ft tall now. The rhyzones have been busy growing out from the original plant.

I would also pot up your baby black boo to a larger pot, say a to a 3-5 gallon size. I find that overpotting is best, as that leaves room for the rhyzomes to grow. It also allows more water to be retained in the soil available to the boo, and it keeps the root mass warmer in winter and cooler in summer. Blacks seem to be far more tempramental about underwatering, and their leaves burn more easilly than other types of Phy. that I have.

Pot it up a size, water and feed it, and watch it shoot next year!