Total Newbie in Toronto Canada

[Talmon]

Hello Everyone, I recently read a few articles about bamboo and VERY strangely fell in love with them. I've never grown a plant in my life so I'm THAT much of a newbie.

BUT... When I fall for something, I fall big and stick with it!

I have less than ideal conditions for growing but you guys surely know something I don't. :) I live in a basement apartment with 8' ceilings and a large north facing window with only indirect sun light. I REALLY want to grow a mini forest of bamboo in here, all the way up to the ceiling and a whole bunch of plants. It's spring now and the weather is becoming great out doors so I was thinking that I could start my mini-forest outdoors all summer and move them in for the winter if possible??? I'm committed to becoming a great bamboo grower and plan to play around and experiment over the coming years.

I've been reading through this site and others and I can now kind of understand what people are talking about but it feel VERY overwhelmed with the amount of information available so while the right thing for me to do would be to read more and more before posting, I've decided to be a bit lazy in parallel and post first while continuing my self education.

So here are a bunch of questions... What breeds of bamboo would be good to grow from seedling to my ceiling with the option of being outdoors in the summer but indoors with indirect sunlight in the winters? I'd like to grow a variety of breeds in parallel and I'd be happy to go grow crazy in the beginning and start a whole forest outside so that by the time winter rolls around, I'll have a large contingent to pick from from among the survivors. :P hehe

Also, and this may be a silly question, but has anyone ever thought of feeding their bamboo with beet juice or other highly absorbable plant based die in order to experiment with their bamboos color? Would this work at all?

Lastly, is there anyone in North America that may be willing to let me call them for a quick intro to bamboo anatomy/bamboo growing chat as I learn much faster via interaction rather than searching through piles of internet data...

Cheers,
Talmon

[stevelau1911]

It is actually really hard to grow bamboo indoors over a long period unless you have very powerful grow lights.

Some bamboos already come in different colors, and I don't think you can change their color with dye unless you paint the culms.

Since You live in around a zone 5, my best suggestion for an outdoor bamboo that can survive would be phyllostachys parvifolia since it can reach decent size in a cold climate, but there are a few others that would do well, except don't expect much more than 30feet tall.

I don't mind if you call me during the day time. I've been in to growing bamboo for about a year.

[R e x]

What size culms do you want? If you want the big stuff, its going to be impossible to keep bringing the plant in for the winter because wide-culmed (big cane circumference) species grow really tall ( >>>>> 8' )!

[Bambrush]

I live in Toronto and I'm wondering if you guys had any culms/seeds, etc. that you can spare for this newbie?! I'm currently looking for some Hardy Bamboo as I know they're the types that can survive here in Toronto (Zone 5). Please email me at stillcrawling@yahoo.com. Thanks in advance.