by Glory Lennon

Created on: September 06, 2008

Though Bamboo grows in huge groves, have hard woody stems and grow as tall as trees, the tallest reaching 60 feet high, they are technically only giant grasses. You'd need a heck of a lawn mower for these babies if you were thinking of exchanging it for your Kentucky Blue. But, no, Bamboo is more like your average Miscanthus Ornamental Grass on steroids.

There are two basic types of Bamboo the running type and the clump forming. It is the running type which has the nasty reputation of being an invasive plant because of their tenacious rhizomes which creep just below the surface and pop up to extend the colony far and wide in all directions from the main plant. In most parts of the world where Bamboo grows naturally, this is considered a good thing as the hard woody stems called Culms have a zillion uses. Bamboo is used in making decorative water features for Japanese gardens, for staking plants, making furniture, fencing, tools, musical instruments, wind chimes and even building homes.

And let us not forget the Giant Pandas rely solely on Bamboo for food therefore it is a good thing it grows so quickly. Being a nutrient poor plant, however, it's indeed a miracle Pandas are not already extinct just eating Bamboo. Unlike what some would say about humans being the bane of all life on Earth, Pandas being brought to zoos and given a better diet has saved them from that fate and allowed us to admire the Bamboo as something other than just food for Pandas.

As for the clump forming Bamboo, they are much more tamed and tamable for the home garden but they are mostly tropical and subtropical and extremely hard to come by at your average garden center.

Some form of Bamboo grows wild in every temperate and tropical region of the world but the ambitious gardeners to the north have been known to grow it within heated greenhouses or in the home and bringing it outside during summer. Bamboo in general doesn't particularly like this treatment but who's going to tell that to the rabid Bamboo lover? The hardiest Bamboo, Rargesia Murielae (6-15 feet tall, clump and very rare), is hardy to zone 5 as is "Yellow Grove Bamboo" (12-25 feet tall, running). The roots if mulched well may survive a zone colder or could be moved indoors for wintering over.

Bamboo is divided into four groups for determining its use in the landscape. In Group I, we have the dwarf cultivars and ground covers used in small clumps, for erosion control, for borders and in rock gardens. These include the cultivars

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>