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Top left - B.ventricosa placed in it's container of water for the winter. Top right - Close-up of the base of the plant. Bottom
left - This is the rootball of the Buddha Belly bamboo after
we removed it from a pond where it resided over the spring and summer.
It was immersed continuously to a depth where approx. one inch of
rootball was above the water. It weighs about 80 pounds at this point.
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| The idea for this experiment came about by accident. Many people believe that bamboo in general likes wet areas but in fact most bamboos will not grow or survive if the roots stay wet. There are a few species such as A.gigantea that will grow in wet areas but this is the exception. B.ventricosa is not generally known as one of these. I originally gave this bamboo to a friend who is not knowledgable about bamboo. Thinking that it needed a wet area he placed it in a garden pond, almost totally submerging the rootball. When I saw the plant after several months I advised that he needed to remove it from the pond or it would probably die. He commented that he had kept it submerged all winter in the greenhouse and now, in the pond it was thriving! It's hard to argue with success. He kept the plant submerged over the spring, summer, and fall and with winter approaching he offered the plant back to me as it had outgrown his greenhouse. I placed it in the container you see, now in my greenhouse. It has now been almost totally submerged for 4 and a half years. and has thrived. It has several new culms each summer and fall and looks great. You can see new roots around the rootball so it appears that is is not only surviving but actively growing. I've placed a few other specimens of this species in buckets of water just to make sure this is not an anomaly. It's summer now and we've taken everything out of the greenhouse. |
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Update
- March 24, 2004 The Buddha Belly has been in the greenhouse all winter and has thrived. It seems to suck up the water and I've had to add quite a bit on a regular basis in order to keep it at the level where the roots are completely submerged. I'm not real knowledable about tropical clumping bamboo but I think most shoot in the fall. This plant had a couple of new shoots when I moved it indoors and it appears to have sent up more over the winter. I took a good look at it today and the new culms look good- it's about to outgrow the greenhouse and I plan to move it outside sometime over the next few days. I don't thing we'll have any more severe cold, perhaps a light frost or two. I'll keep it near the door so I can move it back in, just in case. I'll post some pictures soon as I get it outdoors. |
| Update
- October 19, 2004 The bamboo rootball has now been submerged for 3 years. A couple more smaller plants (same species) have been in 5 gallon pails of water for one year. All three are thriving. The original plant has multiple new culms this fall with the tallest being about 15 feet.Without a doubt this species thrives in wet conditions. I would highly recommend this species for wet areas if you live in a climate where it can handle the winters. Although there are some Phyllostachys species that are supposed to be tolerant of wet conditions this Bambusa species is the only one I'm aware of that has now been proven to not only survive but actively grow with the roots totally submerged. Pictures below were taken November 18, 2004. |
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On the left is the tub containing the plant submerged for 3 years. On the right is the rootball removed for viewing. |
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On the left are the two smaller plants submerged for 1 year. One was in a two gallon container while the other was removed from it's container before both were submerged. On the right is the original plant with multiple new culms from this fall's shooting. Several are in the 15 foot range. (the greenhouse is about 12 feet tall) |
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June, 2005
| We waited until the very last to remove the bamboo this spring. It sat and suffered in an extremely hot greenhouse for several weeks. The container developed a leak and the rootball dried out. It lost most of it's leaves and some of the culms were killed. It is coming back now that I've re-submerged it. The smaller plants are doing fine. It's kind of ironic that it thrived while submerged and almost died from drying out. |
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