In May of 2015 I took the below video of my clump of Bambusa oldhamii I have growing along my driveway. Little did I know the entire clump would start dying only months later. I never observed any gregarious flowering indicating it was about to die, especially since the clump was only about 13 years old from a single culm about 4 feet tall.

About a month ago the first of several (since then) culms started to fall over across my driveway and lodging up against queen palms I have planted on the opposite side. I figured to myself, let them fall one by one and I will cut them up one by one. Well, today my wife went out on a errand, and when she was coming in the driveway she called me on her cell phone telling me a big part of the bamboo clump had fallen across the driveway -- and smashed a large queen sago palm. I went out and removed about four culms, then the rain started, so I had to stop. Tomorrow I plan on removing and cutting up the rest. But, beyond that, I'm now going to have to start cutting the rest of the bamboo still standing, as they are liable to start falling over at anytime and on anything. I assume the clump may regenerate since about 6-7 new culms have come up over the past couple of months.

I've got one heck of a harvest of bamboo. I'm thinking of maybe making up some fence panels of bamboo to use as privacy fence to screen out some of my neighbors. I tried burning some of the culms I cut up several weeks ago and this stuff pops like crazy, as if you threw firecrackers in the fire. Not a good thing IMO. BTW, some of the culms measured 65 feet long.

 

Bamboo lying across driveway.

Wife stuck with car in driveway. When she first called me on her cell phone, I told her just to drive over it, as I thought only one culm had fallen. I sure got a surprise when I came outside to investigate.

Root area of the bamboo. I guess the roots rotted and the bamboo, with the help of the wind, toppled.

 

Any idea why it died? I thought this species did not die after flowering like most. Could it have been accidental herbicide?

How long does oldhmaii timber last in your hot wet climate?

I went through a stage of really liking this plant, but now not so impressed after noticing how hard it was to grow anything around it, they seem to dry out the ground badly and lower fertility for anything else. I still like seeing a good specimen at someone elses place though!

1 hour ago, Bennz said:

Any idea why it died? I thought this species did not die after flowering like most. Could it have been accidental herbicide?

How long does oldhmaii timber last in your hot wet climate?

I went through a stage of really liking this plant, but now not so impressed after noticing how hard it was to grow anything around it, they seem to dry out the ground badly and lower fertility for anything else. I still like seeing a good specimen at someone elses place though!

The death wasn't caused by herbicide as I don't use herbicide. There's Bambusa oldhamii around my area far older than mine -- and still alive. As I said in my video taken in May of 2015, I bought my B. oldhamii as just a short, thin single culm about 13 years before it started to die. The first sign that things were wrong was that my clump wasn't sending up new culms, which generally start in August (our mid summer). Then I started noticing a change in color of the leaves and culms, then defoliation started. Since I didn't see any flowering I thought maybe it became diseased.

But this August - early September I began to see some new culms pushing up, although they aren't full size in diameter and height, but maybe intermediate sized.

Today I cleared the fallen bamboo from across my driveway and also cut down some more of the still standing clump. I'm going to continue to cut out all of the dead culms and only leave the new healthy ones. The removal of the dead bamboo is a monumental task with all the brittle little branches growing off the culms. I plan to burn everything but the best culms of large diameter and straightness. Hopefully, I can do something with them, like construct a bamboo hut, shelter, etc.

My even larger clump of Bambusa  membranacea is doing great. I will really be disappointed if it dies (before I do).

Bamboo looks a lot better if continuously trimmed of older stems and a thinning out of new ones [ this is very easy with a swift kick ]

Some are good eating , and many have great uses for craft and or timber . I use mine for propping up bananas .

Is that a bismarckia or copernicia in the background?

39 minutes ago, TexasColdHardyPalms said:

Is that a bismarckia or copernicia in the background?

It's one of my smallest bismarckia noblis (silver form) palms. I wished it was a coprenicia, but they just won't grow for me. I've tried several species of them and none want to grow for me. I have a 15 year-old C. alba that is virtually no larger now than the day I planted it. I'm through with that genus.