FAIL! My Fargesia Nitida Bamboo is Flowering.

April 21st, 2011

Woe is me. My bamboo is flowering.

Fargesia Nitida Flower Closeup
Bamboo Flower Close-up

Now, up where I live, there is only one bamboo that can really grow. Fargesia Nitida, a clumping Chinese mountain bamboo that is hardy to zone 5.

The thing about bamboo, it doesn’t flower, it doesn’t flower for decades, a century, then it flowers and dies. this makes it very very very hard to hybridize bamboo because the generation period is so long.

It also has a bit of a plant memory, when you take a clone, a cutting, from bamboo, it isn’t “born again” it is the same age as the original. So my 6 or 7 year old clump of Fargesia Nitida, which was finally getting big, was really like 100 years old since it was an original from the first discovered clump. I knew this was possible, because Fargesia Nitidas have been flowering worldwide in recent years, but I was hoping…

Anyways, so now it will die, because once bamboos flower, they die. The seeds can be valuable though, because, they’re a once in a 100 year harvest. But I will have to start all over again, and that does kind of suck.

Fargesia Nitida Flowering
Bamboo Flowering

I may end up sharing some of the seeds, or keeping them. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll store them until I move for planting at my new house (in like 5 years). I do really like this plant, and I recommend it. If you shop for it though, make sure you know if you’re getting a new seedling version, or an old clone, because old clones could flower and die on you in just a couple years.

Posted in: Gardening, Troubleshooting » 

One Response to “FAIL! My Fargesia Nitida Bamboo is Flowering.”

  1. Nelenatonin  Says:
    June 18th, 2011 at 9:16 pm

    Could you give me one or two seeds?

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