Our bamboo seems to be doing well in spite of some record-setting cold weather in the last few weeks. These pictures are a single plant’s progress over the four months since we planted it.
4 months of growth
Our bamboo is growing like crazy these days. It seems to love the hot, humid weather and all of the rain we’ve been getting. Mark also installed a drip irrigation system, since it likes small amounts of water a few times a day. All 10 plants are starting to fill out and grow taller. The most amazing thing is to compare the growth on two of the shoots that I photographed at various stages. They have grown nearly 10 feet tall in just under a month. No wonder bamboo is considered to be one of the most sustainable materials in the world!
Pretty fast! These are taken from a slightly different angle, but you can see that they’ve grown at least an inch per day. They will eventually be about 50 feet tall. Each new cane that comes in will start at a thicker diameter than the existing ones. When mature, the canes will be about 2.5 inches in diameter.
After several delays this week, we got back to bamboo planting today. It was extremely hot and humid, but we finished planting the last 6 plants. Now we just have some tidying up to do and we can sit back and watch the bamboo grow! We are hoping for lots more rain this week.
After work today, we had to move 5 yards of soil from the driveway to the backyard. It took us about 2.5 hours and probably 30 or more wheelbarrow loads. That was a lot of work! Tomorrow after work, we should be able to plant a couple more plants. We will be so happy when it’s all finished.
Our new shoots have almost doubled in size in just a couple of days. It has been a little rainy, so that helps a lot. Bamboo loves hot and rainy weather!
Last weekend, Mark and I bought 10 bamboo plants so we can begin creating our tropical backyard paradise! We bought Seabreeze bamboo, which is a clumping variety (and will not take over the whole neighborhood). It will grow to 35-55 ft. high and will have canes that are around 2.5″ when it is fully grown.
Our first task was to dig a trench because our soil is very sandy. We could have planted each plant individually, but the reason for the trench was to encourage the plants to grow toward each other along our fence line. We want to soften the back corner of the yard, create some shade in our very hot backyard, and screen out the sight and sound of our neighbor’s house. Bamboo was our perfect solution.
