The great bamboo caper 🎍 Telapathic breeding?
Here's a picture from last year right after I brought my bamboo plant home. I got it at the Japanese Garden. That is a cultural park here in Buenos Aires. My finger identifies the one that I tried to save, and how far it is from the suspected bamboo.
That was the first one that I found and I wasn't even sure if it was a bamboo because the little short stretches and knuckles were so close together, about one inch apart actually. See cover photo.
Here is a better view of the plant I was pointing to.
It had died a few weeks after I brought it home. It had dried out and lost its leaves. I had kept watering it even though it was just a stick.
I can't remember which one of you it was, but somebody commented that if you plant bamboo it will take over everything. My patio has four walls, so I don't know if that's a danger to me.
Yet the photo above is the scene of the crime. I don't know how it jumped three feet over to the next pot last year when it started, but I'm finding them everywhere now.
And this other one which used to contain only sawgrass now seems to have bamboo growing up, too. And I don't know how it does it. I don't see flowers or seeds anywhere on them. But the warning has been fulfilled. I am invaded.
The sawgrass came from my neighbor who has a terrace about 12 feet up from my terrace floor. I guess the seeds just fall down to my patio, and now I have sawgrass too. It is a cool plant if you don't walk past it in shorts. The blades of grass have teeth like saw blades do. I think bamboo and saw grass are both great additions to my already crazy mix of plants and bug eaters.
My ladder isn't tall enough for me to get up there and clean out some of the brown or dead sawgrass. I would if I could get up there, I use the dead grass for mulch in my compost.
Well, I have to get this post out and get back to my weeding because there's a lot of dead leaves, dead plants and dead weeds that need to go. They're easier to pull out in the beginning of springtime. I leave you with the one that is half way up a tree...
six feet over and 4 feet up from where it started last year
In a nutshell, I wanted bamboo, and I got it. I thought it would be tall, poles, with leaves on them. But this kind is okay, too.
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En mi pueblo se conoce como caña brava. No sé si será el bambú o una variedad de la misma especie, pero son muy diversas las formas de utilizarla. Sirve para casi todo; hasta dulces hacen con sus retoños.
English
In my village it is known as a rave. I don't know if it will be bamboo or a variety of the same species, but there are many different ways to use it. It serves almost everything; even sweets make with their loins.
That is so cool. I guess I will need some recipes because it looks like I will have a lot of it.
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Ha, bamboo pulling a jailbreak across three feet of patio is brilliant. No seeds, no flowers, just showing up in the next pot like it owns the place. Classic.
This is new scientific information and we should write a paper and publish it in Popular Biology. Lucky women cannot get pregnant just being several feet away. Thanks for making me laugh.
Ha, glad it landed. A bamboo jailbreak deserves a proper scientific paper, honestly. Popular Biology better make room.
Aweee the baby is growing. That’s so cute!
Haha, 'telepathic breeding' is such a fun way to put it! It really feels like magic when a plant you thought was dead suddenly resprouts or sends a runner somewhere nearby. Your patience with watering that stick definitely paid off!
I never thought about the watering being the catalyst. Good eye!
Good luck to your growing bamboo.
For that bamboo to thrive in your backyard, the essentials come down to three keys: impeccable drainage, watering without waterlogging, and controlling root space.
Bamboo hates saturated soil. If it's in a pot, make sure it has generous drainage holes and that the soil is loose, never compacted or clay-like. If water accumulates, the roots rot and the plant slowly dies. In a pot, a layer of clay pebbles at the bottom helps excess water escape.
Bamboo wants constant moisture but without excess. The practical rule: stick your finger in the soil; if the top layer feels dry to the touch, it's time to water. If the leaves start to curl lengthwise, it's thirsty; if they droop downward, you're overwatering.
If your bamboo is in a container, plan to check and divide the root ball periodically (ideally at the end of winter) to renew the soil and give it space. If you have it in the patio ground, be careful: some species are invasive and can spread where you don't want them to.
How did it fall? Was it the wind? These things happen. I'm glad you were able to harvest the bamboo you wanted so much. Best regards.
I am not sure. There are no root connections across the patio. It is a mystery indeed.
I kept thinking about that first bamboo shoot from the Japanese Garden in Buenos Aires — you water a stick that looks completely dead, and a year later it is turning up in a pot three feet away. The sawgrass part made me smile too, especially picturing it creeping in from a terrace twelve feet up. If you ever do get a taller ladder up there, would you keep the bamboo in pots or let it loose somewhere with more room?