Florida Bamboo Forum

Can new bamboo plants be started by planting a cane from another bamboo plant? My neighbor has a nice bamboo plant and I would love to start one in my yard.

read this post: [url:1rllybvk]floridabambooforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17[/url] about starting bamboo from culm cuttings.
A bamboo cane is also called a culm. This method will not work for monopodial (running) bamboo. It will work for some clumping bamboo varieties. Ask your nieghbor what variety he has and I can give you more info.

Thanks! I already asked and he doesn't know. Is there a way I can tell by looking at the bamboo if it is a running or clumping variety. It is a large plant with culms about 40ft tall.

sometimes you can tell by looking at the plant. If it looks like it is growing grouped together in a clump, it may be aclumping bamboo. If it looks a little more spaced out and running out in different directions, it could be a running type. If your neighbor is willing to donate a culm you can give it a try anyway. Follow the method mentioned above and see what happens.

I have access to some very large Bamboo here in Florida, The clumps are about 50' in diameter and 50' tall. Culms are 4" or so. I have an excavator with a back hoe and was curious as to the possibly of digging out a portion of one of these and separating it into individual plants. I would like to create a forest about 1 acre big. I do not know the variety. Can the stalks be left intact or should they be cutoff? of course I want to create this forest ASAP as I do not want to die of old age before the forest is BIG. lots of work but is it doable? It appears there is also running bamboo and this is another option????
thanks---barnaclebill

If you can carefully remove sections of the clump with at least 2 culms with the rhizome intact, you should be able to transplant these sections to your forest area and start new clumps. It sounds like you will taking the sections from a large mature clump, so you have a good idea how large your clumps will grow. This should help you space out your clumps and plan your forest. I dont know about using heavy equipment to dig into the clumps, but it should be no problem if you can do it without damaging the rhizomes. Make sure you water the new clumps very well after transplanting. Regular watering will also help your new bamboo clumps grow faster. Since you are starting with large culms and rhizomes, you should see some fast growth from the new clumps. It would also be ideal for fast growth if you could get your bamboo clumps transplanted in the next few weeks so the new plants can recover before the late summer when many bamboo varieties in Florida tend to have growth spurts.
I would discourage planting running bamboo varieties. Although a running bamboo variety may spread faster, you will probably see faster growth in size from the clumping variety. The runners are very difficult to contain also and can spread very easily to places you may not want the bamboo to grow.