Planting Bamboo Today

[dewey]

 

[GardenerGal]

Haha! I beat you to it -- I checked out and drooled over the 'boos on the bamboo4u site a looooong time ago. Hey, aren't you in Buffalo now? My mother is from there. We used to go there to visit family on ALL the school vacations, so most of my childhood memories of travel involve driving behind New York State snowplows on the highway all the way home from Buffalo to Mass. border.

I'm planning to move to southern coastal Oregon, eventually. The climate there is just right for the cool-temperate rainforest plants I crave: humungus ferns, moss, clumping Bambusa bamboos.

Southern Florida is great, but too humid 'n' hot for my tastes. But if you like that climate, you will be in paradise with the lush palms and 'boos, and tropical hibiscus! And, you can wear an "ice cream suit" all year round!

Whenever I start fantasizing about my eventual move to south Florida, I often find myself looking at online nurseries, and that's how I stumbled upon the various Florida bamboo growers. Being as you're in Mass, I figured I'd make you a little "green with bamboo envy" by posting links of some of them. I'm going to LOVE being in zone 10!

http://www.floridabamboo.com/

http://www.beautifulbamboo.com/

http://www.bamboo4u.com/

 

[AquaEyes]

Haha! I beat you to it -- I checked out and drooled over the 'boos on the bamboo4u site a looooong time ago. Hey, aren't you in Buffalo now? My mother is from there. We used to go there to visit family on ALL the school vacations, so most of my childhood memories of travel involve driving behind New York State snowplows on the highway all the way home from Buffalo to Mass. border.

I'm planning to move to southern coastal Oregon, eventually. The climate there is just right for the cool-temperate rainforest plants I crave: humungus ferns, moss, clumping Bambusa bamboos.

Southern Florida is great, but too humid 'n' hot for my tastes. But if you like that climate, you will be in paradise with the lush palms and 'boos, and tropical hibiscus! And, you can wear an "ice cream suit" all year round!

Yep, I'm in Buffalo now, but leaving by June 1. I'll be graduating and moving on to New Jersey, which is where my first-choice grad school is located. I'll have completed three years here, and I'll be looking forward to that time coming to an end.

I love the humidity, and I love tropical plants. I also love roses, so I learned about the kinds that will do well when I make the move down. Until then, I'll have to enjoy the others as I gift them to friends for their yards -- and then say goodbye to albas, gallicas, damasks, portlands, centifolias, etc. as I say hello to teas, chinas, noisettes, tea-noisettes, lady banks, hybrid giganteas, etc. And in a frost-free climate on enough land, I can finally start building outdoor planted aviaries. So you can have your ferns and mosses -- I'll be growing tillandsias, gingers, heliconias, bananas, lychees, mangoes, passifloras, etc. and have my giant outdoor bird cages.

BTW -- what's an "ice cream suit"?

 

[GardenerGal]

That is a fantastic plan, and I'll be wanting to see photos when you bring it to fruition! You are right, there is a whole different realm of plant life you can grow outdoors in such a climate. My tiny house is crammed with dwarf citrus, colocasias, tropical bamboo, orchids, even a banana that goes outside every spring and comes back inside the sunroom every fall in late October.

Hm. Maybe I should move to Hawaii come to think of it!

Naw. I really love the PNW rainforest. Gotta get me some of that! My outdoor aviary will contain zone-8 hardy plants and birds.

Ice cream suits go back to the 19th century or turn of the 20th and up to modern times, I think. They were pure white or pastel-colored (and sometimes pin-striped) linen or other light-weight fabric suits that gentlemen would wear in tropical climes or hot summers. I think the name corresponds to the white uniforms ice cream men (think, "Good Humor Man") wore at soda fountains, or perhaps it was because the suits would be worn to ice cream socials, or cool whiteness of the outfit was reminiscent of ice cream.

Ray Bradbury (famous science fiction author) once penned a story called "The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit," which was subsequently made into a movie.

http://history.sundance.org/films/1727

A wonderful ice cream suit:

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl...peT-XENIb30gGVtenFBw&ved=0CD8Q9QEwAA&dur=1974

 

[AquaEyes]

I grew bananas outside on Long Island (which is where I lived before coming here). Musa basjoo was the species I grew, started as two tiny pups I ordered from an online nursery. I was in zone 7, and just wrapped the pseudostems and covered them in plastic over the winter. See below -- second summer in the ground.






I'm leaning toward using greenhouse frames for the aviaries, covered in wire rather than plastic. For a footing, I would build a raised bed, securing the base-perimeter of the frame on the inside-wall of the raised bed. Climbing roses and/or some kind of vines planted in the raised bed will grow over the aviary wire, providing dappled shade.

Inside, I'd plant it with nontoxic plants that are either insect-attracting or fruit-bearing. To disguise the interior supporting beams, I'd wrap braided rope around them, and attach epiphytic plants or vines. The planting of the interior and exterior will require at least a year for things to fill in before I'd add any birds, but when they're done, they'd be large walk-in aviaries made to look like a tropical garden, something like the tropical aviaries at zoos but on a smaller and less intensive scale.

For me, it's the perfect marriage of a love of gardening with a love of birds. I've incorporated ideas from outdoor aviaries I've come across on the web, as well as from some people I know who work for zoos with indoor walk-through aviaries. And since I have all this time (years....) before I can even begin, I can seriously research all the nuts and bolts involved -- it won't be cheap, but it's not nearly as expensive as I once imagined, and quite doable if envisioned as a project over a couple of years.

 

[GardenerGal]

Great photos! I can grow Musa basjoo here, and did have some for a while ... but it eventually succumbed to the dreaded "cold, wet feet" in one of our freeze-thaw-freeze-thaw winters. It does fine here as long as it gets perfect drainage in the winter. I've also grown hardy palms here. We're right on the coast, so it's a zone 7 climate. My potted 'naner is a blood banana, fully tropical. But it tolerates temps into the 40s and even 30s as long as it's above freezing. But I move it inside when night temps get to 36 or 38. I prune it back first, and following a few weeks of semi dormancy it begins to put out new growth.

Your greenhouse plan for the subtropical climate makes sense. You could also try concrete cinderblock "surround" that serves as the frame for the raised bed. Is it true that there is little actual soil in southern Florida? That it's mostly sand-seashell limestone? If that's the case, you'll need access to really good compost. Maybe settle down near a large stable or equestrian center for ready access to quality compost! Especially for roses and other greedy feeders.

The coolest thing about doing what you plan to do in southern Florida is the wealth of butterfly- and hummingbird attracting plants you can grow. And night-pollinating moths and bats. You can have your aviary AND a wildlife garden together. So what if it's some years down the road? Having dreams and plans is necessary to provide the focus we need to do what we gotta do now!

 

[AquaEyes]

Great photos! I can grow Musa basjoo here, and did have some for a while ... but it eventually succumbed to the dreaded "cold, wet feet" in one of our freeze-thaw-freeze-thaw winters. It does fine here as long as it gets perfect drainage in the winter. I've also grown hardy palms here. We're right on the coast, so it's a zone 7 climate. My potted 'naner is a blood banana, fully tropical. But it tolerates temps into the 40s and even 30s as long as it's above freezing. But I move it inside when night temps get to 36 or 38. I prune it back first, and following a few weeks of semi dormancy it begins to put out new growth.

Your greenhouse plan for the subtropical climate makes sense. You could also try concrete cinderblock "surround" that serves as the frame for the raised bed. Is it true that there is little actual soil in southern Florida? That it's mostly sand-seashell limestone? If that's the case, you'll need access to really good compost. Maybe settle down near a large stable or equestrian center for ready access to quality compost! Especially for roses and other greedy feeders.

The coolest thing about doing what you plan to do in southern Florida is the wealth of butterfly- and hummingbird attracting plants you can grow. And night-pollinating moths and bats. You can have your aviary AND a wildlife garden together. So what if it's some years down the road? Having dreams and plans is necessary to provide the focus we need to do what we gotta do now!

My bananas would have succumbed as well, if I didn't wrap them really well. I should have elaborated on that. I'd cut down the leaves, wrap the pseudostems in several layers of newspaper, then take a sturdy garbage bag and put it upside-down over the pseudostem. I'd then rip a hole in the bag's upside-down bottom, fill the space between the pseudostem and the bag with shredded leaves, then tie the hole closed and slide another bag over it. Around the bottom, I'd have the garbage bag flared out, and then mound several inches of shredded leaves around the outside. The first year, my roommates nagged me about the way it looked. The second year, I used white bags and tried to make them look like snowmen. I suppose if I really cared, I'd have just gotten a set of those decorative leaf bags that look like jack-o-lanterns or something. But, in any case, the bases stayed dry, and that was the key.

Yes, south Florida soil is a few sandy inches at best, over a bed of oolitic limestone. Some parts have a bit of clay over the limestone (the Redlands area), but in any case, that was the purpose of the raised beds -- providing a way to have deep, rich soil. Initially, I could use them as compost bins until the soil level was built up, or just buy a truckload of finished compost to use as the planting medium -- or seeking out horse stables offering "free stuff." And don't forget about chicken litter!

Yes, I've been trying to learn about the plants that will grow there, and the variety is astounding. It's no coincidence that a lot of tropical plant nurseries are in the area, growing plants that likely end up in the houseplant section of Home Depot. I'll be sad to say goodbye to the species that can't take the climate, but I'd be saying hello to so many more that have attracted me much more strongly.

 

[AquaEyes]

Oooh, getting back to bamboo.....my friend Paul lives in an apartment building in Queens. He has a balcony several stories above the ground, and made his own little "container garden in the sky." He used Yushania chungii and Fargesia rufa (or related species...can't remember what he told me). See two of his "end of first summer" pics below.

 

[GardenerGal]

Wow!! GREAT balcony garden!!! Your friend's balcony looks like it is a good size, too. It's amazing how plants can be layered to make a dense garden in a narrow area. Those 'boos look so lush and happy. I have lots of F. rufa around the yard. It grows like a haystack and makes a great low screen along a driveway or other area where you want privacy but don't want an unfriendly fence. It must be nice for your pal to sit indoors and look out the window and see bamboo instead of buildings.

How do you embed a photo like that? I didn't see a function for it in the editor boxes.

 

[AquaEyes]

Look at the row of options above the text where you type a reply. Go to the smiley face, then count to the fifth icon to the left of it. That's the image icon. Click it, and it will let you upload an image, OR enter the url for an image you already have uploaded somewhere.

Oh, so you're thinking about gardening and aviaries in the PNW, huh? Well, then this site might inspire you a bit. It's a rescue aviary in Washington. Most of the birds are cockatoos, and they're kept in flocks, so there isn't much chance of landscaping on or in the aviaries. But the land itself has some well-thought plantings and paths. Take a look at the pics, and be inspired. It's one of the ones I first looked at when I got the idea to start on my own outdoor planted aviary idea.

http://cockatoorescue.org/