Edible bamboos to plant in Austin

[ColonelSeitan]

Hi! This is my first post on the forum here, glad to find it :)

I've just bought a home here and I've always been curious to grow bamboo as a food source and went to a little workshop about bamboo maintenance a little while back. In addition to food, I've also been considering using bamboo as a privacy shade since you can see over our backyard fence to the neighbors' house. The fence is probably about 6 ft. tall right now.

Do you guys have any recommendations for varieties I could try here?

[CaroleMeckes]

Hello Colonel,
Since you are in Austin, Texas - one thing (that you may have already done) is visit the Taniguchi Japanese Garden at Zilker Botanical Gardens. Here is a link to a bamboo walking tour (http://bamboo.home.texas.net/walkingtourtog.htm) of the bamboo that is at the garden. All the species growing there are good for your area (except for the Chimonobambusa marmorea - which finds it just too hot here for it's liking).

re bamboo's good for a food source - there are many bamboo that have good edible shoots - but bear in mind that you need to have an established planting before you can start to harvest shoots.

The book, Farming Bamboo, by Daphne Lewis and Carol Miles, has lots of information about growing bamboo for shoots.

Here's a bamboo event in Austin for you to put on your calendar - August 22-23, 2009 is the 17th Annual Texas Bamboo Festival at Zilker Botanical Garden. Bamboo festival details are posted at http://www.bamboocentral.net

Carole

[ColonelSeitan]

Thanks for the response Carole :) I actually haven't been to the botanical gardens in many years, so I should go check the grove out. I pitched in to do a little maintenance at the grove near Barton Creek a while back as they have some trails going through, I was sad to see over half of the grove knocked down for new condos being built(but I at least got to use a bunch of the reeds to build a little garden fence at my house).