Good to know when buying bamboo: When does the plant bloom?
When buying bamboo, how can you tell that the
Plants not blooming soon? Fargesia murielae, the garden bamboo, bloomed in the mid-1990s. All other Fargesia varieties were in bloom for plus / minus ten years in the same period. The bamboo plants that you buy today come from the new generation and are safe to flower for the next 60 to 80 years! There are also exceptions:
- Pleioblastus
- Phyllostachys
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These types of bamboo bloom more often and don't die right away. With pruning and special fertilizer you can bring them back to sprout after flowering. The fact is: A bamboo blooms every several decades.
Why does every bamboo variety bloom almost at the same time
Scientists suspect a kind of internal clock in plant genes. In addition, the individual types of bamboo were created through root division and have the same origin.
Why does the bamboo die after flowering?
Clump-forming rhizomes do not store as many nutrients as the root-forming phyllostachys. Flowering costs the plants a lot of strength and nutrients. These are then missing for growth.
What to do when the bamboo blooms
The bamboo blooms, spreads its seeds and dies. You can't stop it. Enjoy the rare flower show. The new generation can be grown again from this seed. Then you can be sure that flowering will take a break for at least two generations.
Tips & Tricks
Buy certified plants or new varieties from a specialist company if you don't want to experience any surprises with the flowering guarantee. You should be careful with laboratory propagation and the origin of the bamboo plants is not certain.
