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Clumping bamboo for cold climates: Ornamental options
So you'd like to plant some bamboo in your garden. It's fast-growing, with an exotic flair, and it can add a great deal of ornamental elegance to your ordinary greenery. But there are two things you might be worried about. First, you get snow in the winter, and you...
Buddha Belly: Bamboo of the highest calling
A fast-growing clumper with well-defined culms, Buddha Belly stands out as one of the most popular varieties of ornamental bamboo. While its irregular shape makes it less than ideal for poles and other uses, Buddha Belly Bamboo looks gorgeous in any garden. There are...
Plants that look like bamboo (but aren’t)
The world of bamboo is rich and diverse. With about 1,500 varieties to keep track of, it's easy to get lost. Some bamboos stretch over 100 feet high, taller than most trees. Other dwarf species only grow up to a few inches. But with the general similarities common to...
Golden Bamboo: Phyllostachys aurea and others
If you're relatively new to bamboo, you might be looking for a popular variety that's easy to recognize and quick to grow. Perhaps someone recommended growing Golden Bamboo. Or maybe you came across it in a magazine and thought it would look great in your backyard....
Hiroshima Bamboo: Hibanobambusa tranquillans ‘Shiroshima’
If you wander around the internet reading about bamboo — and I'm guessing that you do — you'll eventually come across a story of how bamboo was one of the only living things to survive after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945. Other versions tell us that bamboo...
Bambusa beecheyana: Bamboo for cultivation and cuisine
When it comes to farming bamboo, one of the first questions you encounter is which species to grow. For every climate, there can be a handful or a boatload of species to choose from. Of course, the answer will depend largely on what you want to do with the bamboo. If...