Timber Bamboos
Page being re-built Check back
The group timber bamboo hosts the truly mind boggling growth in bamboos. Being a non vascular plant the new culms come out of the ground the diameter that individual will always be and then grow to its mature height in roughly 12 weeks. The quality of some of the wood can compete with metal in certain applications and may at times exceed steel. The shoots in most cases are palatable directly out of the ground. The possibly most important key growing timber bamboo is water. Not to indicate growing in a swamp though. Full sun is the best and lots of fertilizer. The lofty giants are from China and Japan. All are running. Growing to 60 + feet
For the temperate garden all the true timber size bamboo will be Phyllostachys. The genius Phyllostachys originates from areas of China that experience often quite cold winters combined with hot summers. Confusion with other genera is quite hard, since there is always a deep grove called a sulcus on the internode of any branched node and usually 2 branches per node. On the lower internodes of the larger species branches and therefore a sulcus is often absent. The quality of the culms for building material ranges from exceptional (P. bambusoides) to poor (P. dulcis and P. vivax). Possibly the fastest to size up would be P. vivax and the slowest Phyllostachys heterocycla pubescens (moso) followed by P. bambusoides.