Purchasing Your Bamboo Plant

When purchasing a bamboo plant is is very important to ensure that the seedling is young or that the bamboo plant is around the twelve month old mark.

It is easy to become carried away when buying plants, particularly if they look green lush and you get carried away in the heat of the moment. You have heard of the term "buyer beware", well this term can be used here The biggest looking bamboo plant is not always the best and most healthy specimen.

You need to be able to detach yourself from emotion when purchasing you bamboo plant, take account of the area where you need the bamboo located within your garden, does it need full or part sun, will the bamboo plant require protection from the wind, what kind of soil does the bamboo like and more importantly what temperatures will the bamboo tolerate? These are all important questions to consider when you are purchasing you bamboo plant.

So it is necessary then to detach yourself from emotion and excitement of buying a large specimen, it is essential to pay attention to the bamboo plant and do a little investigation work to see how it has been cultivated.

Buying A Bamboo Plant

It is important to give bamboo time to grow at its own speed. A bamboo plant needs time to grow at their own pace to allow for growth and maturity, this is because of their complex rhizome and root structures, which are essential for the continuation and healthy growth of the plant. If the plant is rushed or potted on too early and not allowed to grow and develop at its own pace then it may be of poor quality, and it may also be prone to disease and ultimately die. "Download our bamboo ebook for just $19.95 and receive over $50 of bonus ebooks free!"

Large is NOT always Best.

It is easy to become carried away with how large your bamboo plant is or the mass of foliage it has, but the most important part of the bamboo plant is not the amount of leaf foliage above the pot or the number of culms (remember quality not quantity), it is what is within the pot - that is the Bamboo's rhizomes and roots. Although it is important to ensure that the culms are young, are in good health and are undamaged.

Green, glossy leaves Are Good

A healthy bamboo plant will have healthy moist leaves and fresh culms which show new growth as its nodes. The culms should be undamaged and free from disease. Bamboo with pale or yellow leaves or a high percentage of old, woody culms should be avoided as this plant will probably have been split from an older bamboo through division.

Look at the Rhizomes and the Roots

The pot must be in similar proportion to the amount of leaf foliage above the bamboo pot. Take a look at the roots within the pots as these should show a healthy white root and rhizome structure. If there are a large amount of white new roots, then there will be a good strong bamboo that will emerge, at this stage you will also be able to identify whether the bamboo plant has been container grown or containerised. Take a look around the top of the bamboo container as there should also be visible signs of fresh new growth at the edge or around the top of the bamboo pot, which again indicates a good strong bamboo plant.

Container or Containerised Bamboo Plant? There are various methods of growing a bamboo plant for your garden, this can be from bamboo seed (which is hard to come by given the long flowering periods of the bamboo plant )

Other methods of growing a bamboo plant is through division, vegetative, tissue culture, however whichever method is used each has their own advantages and disadvantages.

A bamboo plant that grown and potted on in containers is one that has been allowed to grow at its own pace and mature throughout its life. It is a bamboo plant that will have been potted on when it was ready for the next stage in its growing cycle. This will provide a healthy balanced bamboo plant that when positioned in the garden will be healthy, strong and able to adapt to the change in conditions much easier than that of a containerised bamboo plant.

Let us then take a look at a containerised bamboo plant, this is a bamboo plant that has been split from a large stock plant thought the splitting of the root and rhizome structure. If great care is not taken the rhizome and root system can be severed when the division took place, so whilst the bamboo plant may have fantastic foliage and be of a good size, checks must be taken as previously described.

Look at the culms/canes of the bamboo plant, is there a mixture of young and old, with visible signs of new leaf growth? The leaves of the bamboo plant should be healthy, moist and green in colour. Roots and rhizomes should be white and healthy and show new growth, check that the roots of the bamboo plant are in tact.

Pest and diseases - again look for visible signs of damage and establish if chemicals have been used when treating these as chemicals can damage the immune system of the bamboo plant.

Gain as much information as possible from the supplier. Again DON'T be fooled with what is above the pot, Take a Look at the ROOTS! And always remember to buy a bamboo for the purpose that you intended it to be used for, if you wanted a screening bamboo, there is no point in buying one that is a dwarf clump forming bamboo that will be best suited to a protected garden setting.