BAMBOO IN DAILY LIFE

Our bamboo collection

The Chinese Garden has some twenty species of bamboos. There are another dozen or so other species elsewhere in the Botanical Garden, mainly in the greenhouses and the Japanese Garden.

The main bamboos you can see here belong to the Phyllostachys genera:

• Phyllostachys nigra 'Henonis' with green or yellow culms (depending on how much sun they receive);
• Phyllostachys nigra, native to India, whose culms turn black after three years;
• Phyllostachys aureosulcata, hardy, whose yellow culms make good fishing rods;
• Phyllostachys nuda, whose green culms are used for umbrella handles.

Elsewhere in the Chinese Garden you will find:

• dwarf bamboos forming a ground cover (Arundinaria pumila);
• hedge bamboo, with its yellow culms with green stripes (Bambusa multiplex (or Bambusa glaucescens) 'Alphonse Karr');
• golden bamboo, whose very hard culms are used for building furniture (Phyllostachys aurea).

In this garden, a Phyllostachys aureosulcata plant, which is left outside all winter, has now produced new stems that are 3 m tall, or one metre higher than those it produced when it was first planted here, three years ago. Because the plant has not yet reached full maturity, we assume that the rhizomes will continue to grow and produce larger culms each year.

Local conditions do slow its growth considerably, however. In a more favourable setting, this plant would be two or three times as large.

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