My clump of Bambusa oldhamii is all but dead now

[Walt]

I think I planted my Bambusa oldhamii from a 3 gallon size pot with just a single 3 feet high culm. I bought my B. oldhamhii from Crowley's Nursery in Sarasota County, Florida. It only took about 3-4 years before the clump reached its present height, then is just expanded in diameter each year. Normally, new culms would start to emerge in late July/early August. But this year at that time new culms weren't coming up. In fact, the existing culms were starting to defoliate -- and not replacing with new leaves. I knew it wasn't defoliating from lack of moisture as they had been getting more than adequate rain. Finally, I saw maybe 3 to 4 new culms emerge, but they never developed to normal size. They were shorter and much smaller in diameter.

Finally, I realized my clump was dying. To say I was disappointed would be an understatement. I was dumbfounded and couldn't understand why this clump was dying, being less than 15 years old. I read online that all bamboo separated from a main clump and planted in other parts of the world, that they would all die at the same time. But that doesn't answer my question as to why my clump just suddenly died. I've reconciled myself to the loss, but I don't look forward to have to cutting the clump down. What PITA this is going to be -- and a waste of good bamboo. Then there's the matter of the stumps. I guess I will have to get my palm trimmer to come in with a stump grinder and grind them down to at least the level of the surrounding soil.

In any event, here's a photo of my dead clump. Below that is a YouTube video I made of this clump in May of 2015 -- totally unaware my clump only had months to live!

If any of you posters know why my clump died, please chime in. I have about 6-7 more species of bamboo, as I like the genus. I will probably replace my B. oldhamii this spring, since it's a relatively fast grower.

 

[cycadjungle]

I'd say first check for some sort of root fungus and you may not want to plant anything there. Walt, if you want to do some digging, you can have mine. There is only about 8 culms so it isn't like it is a huge clump or anything like that.  Tom

[WestCoastGal]

Wow, sorry for the loss. When I was researching bamboo a few years ago before selecting ours I seem to remember reading somewhere that bamboo can live a long life but does have a limit. And when it starts to die the entire clump will die off. I'm not sure where I read that. Will try to re-locate the info. Might also recall that it flowers before it dies??? Doubt your clump was in your ground long enough to have lived past its prime but wonder though if since bamboo is grown from other clumps basically if the original rhizomes it came from had reached it time, and being like a clone died off too? kind of like a replicant in Blade Runner LOL. I'll be interested to see what responses you get.

 

[WestCoastGal]

I might not have been far off with my comments. This is not what I had read before but after 48 years and flowering this bamboo in India all dies:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mautam

After thinking about it for a while I also seem to recall reading that when you buy bamboo you never really know how old the plant is. 

 

OK here's an article excerpt from the New Phytologist: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30224722?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

Did you notice your bamboo flowering?

[WestCoastGal]

I do know that bamboo poles can be kind of costly to buy, especially the wider diameter ones, and if your clump can be cut down and used, then someone might be willing to cut it for you and take it off your hands.  Here's a site that sells bamboo poles just to give you an idea of what poles of various diameters and lengths might sell for: Bamboo Poles

[Alicehunter2000]

Good info WCG ..... sorry Walt ...... could give you some of mine but it is not big enough to separate yet .... its in a pot until it gets too big.

[WonderKeeper]

When something like this happened to bamboo, I would think of them already bloomed. Usually after it flowered , the entire clump will die in a few months to few years follow.  Your bamboo canes are too tall for you to see  its blossoms or maybe you  do or  do not recall of saw its flowers.  Here is  what it look like.....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsteJUZ90CU

If you were grown that  blooming clump next to other clumps of bamboo, the other bamboos may copy that event .

[WonderKeeper]

or maybe the plant you got had been grown in pot for many years already , or it already bloomed at the nursery. The plant that I took a video was in 15 gal pot and it only about 11ft tall. It was labeled Clumping Golden Chinese Bamboo . It was stated on the tag that it will grow to a big canes.

[Walt]

Thanks for the many replies.

 

There was absolutely no flowering of my bamboo. Note there is no flowers in the YouTube video I made in May 2015 -- yet the clump started dying just months later. I'd have to check my photo folders, but I think I planted my single culm B. oldhamii in 2003. So we are talking 13 years. If, like Tom said, my plant wasn't killed by some kind of root fungus, then I have no idea what caused its demise. One thing I know about the area all around my B. oldhamii is that to soil around it and fairly far out is very fibrous, almost like impenetrable roots. I've planted various plants in that area and they died, not being able to develop and ramify roots. I don't know if the soil condition (the fibrous roots) are from the bamboo or something else. I do know I had a sea grape shrub planted there and also a African sausage tree. Both did nothing at all for 2-3 years. I dug them up and they had virtually no root system. But I replanted them (after rehabilitating them in pots) and they grew normally in other locations. Further, I have a Syagrus botryophora planted next to the B. oldhamii, and it is growing very slow compared to my other one in a different location. And S. botryophora are very fast growing. In fact, the fastest growing species of palm I'm growing.

As far as the harvested bamboo, I think I will just try to construct something out of it, getting ideas off the internet. I will cut most of it down into large diameter lengths. I might even make some sections of bamboo stockade fence to screen out neighbors or act as a wind break. I just want to get some kind of consolation for the loss of this bamboo. My wife doesn't mind the loss because of the littering mess it made, sometimes more than once a year. After I remove this clump I will post back with photos.

 

Thanks for the links, WCG and Wonder Keeper. However, I knew bamboo flowered and died, and flowers were the first thing I looked for. I didn't see any. If there were any flowers they had to be inconspicuous.

 

I know Crowley's Nursery has a website and email address. I may contact Kathy Crowley (she sold me the bamboo) and ask her about it (if she knows where she got the bamboo she sold me from. I know they grow mature bamboo at the nursery and then separate it, so maybe mine was destined to die due to old age which was genetically programmed.