Infatuated with giant bamboo
30 years ago I fell in love with bamboo. I wanted to try bamboo in my garden, started a nursery (De Groene Prins) and am still in love with my fascinating giant bamboos.
I have had a strong bamboo carport for over 10 years (of course from my own garden!) And I regularly eat fresh bamboo shoots from my garden. Countless species have been planted in the open ground.
The biggest bamboo giant
Thanks to the warm summers of 2018 onwards, our bamboos have gained a lot of energy.
The biggest giant among the bamboo has answered my love and this year produced a thickest trunk of no less than 3.3 inches thick! It’s a new shoot of Phyllostachys vivax. It was 13.3 m tall.
Phyllostachys sp Shanghai 3 has broken its own record, and is now 2.7inches thick (measured at eye level between 2 knots).
Phyllostachys nigra Boryana has reached a thickness of 2 inch this year.
test – also a giant, is just beginning to produce shoots!
Growing bamboo
A minimum of 15 m² of soil area and root barrier are required to cultivate such large shoots. Bamboo takes 3 to 4 years for the young shoots to harden up and become real wood. My plan is to build a pavilion in the garden!
Bamboe is good for the environment!
A lot of CO2 is absorbed by bamboo and oxygen produced for us … and that is essential for us! And annual managed harvesting makes bamboo an inexhaustible source. Application for foods and forestry is slowly starting to get going in the Netherlands.