Henon too close to house?

[glenn smith]

I'm thinking rhizome pruning only on the house side might save me from being utilized for nutrients in my sleep?

Glenn

[Snowbird]

wow, good luck. i'd bet you are correct and that henon would find you mighty nutritious. btw, how tall is it and what zone are you in?

[Mark Meckes]

That is truly remarkable growth Glenn!
I think you've tapped into the 'Fountain of Youth'.
How long has this bamboo been in the ground?

It is a difficult decision, whether to permit a larger rhizome base in order that the planting will produce larger diameter culms, or whether to culmfine rhizome development which will produce more but smaller diameter culms.

Larger culms can grow more erect, and any growing too near the house can end up as a gourmet dish if harvested very young. But the more the rhizomes roam the more they will want to roam so one has to 'draw the line' sometime.

Smaller diameter culms, as a result of restraining rhizome spread, can get more 'in you face' floppy, which can be ameliorated with judicious pruning.

Mark

[glenn smith]

Snowbird;

I believe we are in zone 8b; north coast of the Olympic Penninsula. We just measured the tallest culm @ 17' X 1" diameter.
Guess I'll be sleeping lightly!

Mark;

Plant is about 3 1/2 years old now: put in ground from one-gallon pot. I'm hoping for the best of both worlds: rhizome prune along the adjacent walkway and let it expand in the opposite direction for awhile.

Glenn

[Snowbird]

wow, i'm jealous. i can only hope for growth that thick and quick.

[ShmuBamboo]

Glenn and I have been having a private conversation about this one, so I will add some stuff here that I posted to him on this particular Henon. I have a vivax 10 ft from our house here, and I am moving it farther out after seeing some vivax that was removed from a house that undermined the foundation last weekend. It can and does do big damage to foundations. As for his being food, I read in some old boo books that my brother has that the best fertilizer is a dead dog or sheep buring under your boo. ;)

One thing to note (if I recall right) is that Phy. nigra 'Henon' is the tallest bamboo recorded in the PNW. 54 ft I think it was. Or is. Fortunately for me, Mark ID's my Henon before I planted it in the ground here. It was given to me as 'Golden'. Not so. I have some Phy. aurea, AKA "Golden" planted 8 ft. from the house and I can live with that. The Henon is all in pots and going to go out at least 50 ft from the house in a section behind a grove of Phy. nigra 'black' that I have planted. Henon your size is really still in its juvenile form. About the full size that "black" gets. The 'adults' are HUGE! 4"-6" culms that easily grow 40-50 ft high. I have seen several adult groves of Henon. One grove was at the house where I got mine from (obviously the ones I got were runners from the main group and still juvenile sized delinquents). That grove was 40 ft high and culms were 4 inches average. All culms in the main grove were full size. The grove is 15-20 ft across. I will snap some photos of it when I am down there next month (they sold the house and I have to go get my orchid collection that is on loan there).

You are indeed in USDA zone 8b, the same zone that I live in. 15 degrees F. was the low for the past 2 years. 25 degrees F. was the low the year before that. Several things that you can do are:
1) Cut the rhizomes and shoots after the canes harden off to keep the plant contained and plant them in pots. That supposedly will keep the plant in smaller form, and is the trick that many bamboo nurseries use to propagate them (propagating full size adult Henon is a real task, if not impossible, but I have seen it done).
2) Put in a rhizome barrier near the plant at least 8 ft from the house, dug in at a 45 degree angle with the top of the barrier leaning toward the house. That way any runners will be forced up and not get too close to the house.
3) Dig up the whole thing and divide it or relocate it to some other part of your acre parcel (my solution with the vivax here, but I have a large Kubota tractor with a bucket big enough to do it in one swoosh).
4) Dig it up, hack it up and sell it on Ebay :)
5) Move out of your house, NOW! Before it is too late! The Henon Monster is going to get you! Beware! Run for your life!
6) Do nothing, and well, become food for it. Make sure that your life and home insurance is up to date. I will be happy to co-sign as a beneficiary :) :) :)

Whatever you do, do it soon though. I might recommend a combination of #1 and #2 above. Get more plants, keep it smaller, and have some insurance. Though, if it does pop up a monster shoot you will be in for some very tall landscaping in a hurry. Any neglect and it will revert to its native form, and that is VERY LARGE here in the PNW. I keep mine in pots... they stay smaller that way.

[Mark Meckes]

I've seen many worse examples of trees and shrubs planted too near a building, (and have had to personally deal at considerable expense with predecessors inappropriate plantings, and dangers of trees and breaking branches falling onto the house).
The problem with large growing trees and most shrubs is that unless they are pruned and dwarfed or bonsai'd throughout their life, if they are allowed to grow out of control, they can become a bulky monster, even crush your house in the next wind or ice storm. The only recourse is often to cut down the beast in it's entirety.

Bamboo on the other hand can be manipulated to a much greater extent to conform to the space allocated, through rhizome control and selective thinning and/or topping of the culms. The planting can even be 'coaxed' from it's initial planting spot over to a location more suited if needed.

Regarding problems with foundations, my generalized opinion would be that there would have already been a problem with a poorly laid foundation in the first place.
Bamboo rhizomes by nature will follow the path of least resistance, and it is only if there was a crack in a foundation, and available moisture that it would follow that course.
Tree roots can be much worse in that their roots unlike rhizomes expand in diameter over the years, and live for many years, and can raise large slabs of concrete on driveways and sidewalks etc.
I have not seen this happen to our sidewalk along the perimeter of a long established grove.

I have seen an emerging shoot of a clumping bamboo (Bambusa oldhamii) raise up a 16"X16"X2" stepping stone.
... and must go outside and take a picture of it. ;)

Mark

[glenn smith]

I think by this winter I'll have the trench completed, I'll tease the rhizomes in the non-house direction with "directional mulching" and if you don't hear from me next summer, I've become a bamboo pod-person. ;-j

[ShmuBamboo]

Well, I almost became a podded person here! The dreaded Henon monsters are very subtle at times. I have been rearranging my boo collection in their large pots (15 to 55 gal. size) at the side of the house, and lo... I pulled on the large Henon pot and it would not budge! Investigation found a rhyzome had escaped out of a drain hole and was boring into the ground! And the pot was only 4 ft from the drip line of the house eves!!!!! :eek:

So I got my trusty Felco #2s and freed the pot. Then I dug up the well rooted foot long escapee and potted it up. I am debating on planting it, or listing it on Ebay as a, "Rare and Exotic Timber Bamboo." Or should it be, "Rare Alien Plant Life Looking for a New Place to Feed" :rolleyes: (with violins shrieking three times like in a Hitchcock movie)

[Mark Meckes]

.... I'll tease the rhizomes in the non-house direction with "directional mulching" and if you don't hear from me next summer, I've become a bamboo pod-person. ;-j

FYI ...
Rhizopod
A protozoan of the class or sub-class Rhizopoda, such as an amoeba or radiolarian, characteristically moving and taking in food by means of pseudopodia. :eek: - American Heritage Dictionary

Fresh-Water Rhizopods of North America Illustrated:
http://www.ansp.org/museum/leidy/other/litho_1879_10.php
... an uncanny resemblence to bamboo pod-people ;)

Mark

[ShmuBamboo]

Rhizopods... that gets a Homer Simpson wiggly finger "Ooooooooohhhhhhhhh"

[glenn smith]

You fellows ever see the remake of "Little Shop of Horrors" with Rick Moranis?

"Feed me Seymore! Feed me all night long!"

Yeah, I'm having dreams like that.

Glenn

[ShmuBamboo]

Oh yah, great movie. Steve Martin plays the whacked out dentist doing nitrous oxide for himself before doing work on his patients.

When I was an engineer in San Deigo my cube-mate had a poster of 'the pods' from the Invasion of the Body Snatchers movie.

Then of course there are the Boo... ...org. You will be assimilated into the Bamboo Continuum! Resistance is Futile!

...don't feed the plants... :cool:

You fellows ever see the remake of "Little Shop of Horrors" with Rick Moranis?

"Feed me Seymore! Feed me all night long!"

Yeah, I'm having dreams like that.

Glenn