Bamboo anyone?

Leo in N E Illinois

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LEaves generally last one year to 18 months. Then the first season leaves will be shed. New leaves will appear from branches developing on the culms. Each year the branches will add another level of branching, and the leaves will become smaller with each level of branching. I do not recommend defoliation to reduce leaf size, let it happen naturally. Or if you do remove old leaves, wait until after the spring flush of secondary branching has begun.

Think of your tray planting as a ''forest'' on a connected root. Reduce the number of culms to an attractive number and placement. Keep at least 3 culms, cut out below the soil line any poorly placed, too short or too tall culms. Often, once you have a nice arrangement of culms with their second or third level of branching so leaves are small, new culms are removed for a couple years, to keep the nice image. Eventually a flush of new culms do need to be retained as the old culms should be removed about every 5 to 10 years, I get rid of old culms at about 6 years for my Phyllostachys plantings.
 

Bon Sai

Mame
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Nice, looking good. The new culm will grow very fast, probably reach full height in less than a month.

Look at this. The culm on the left I didn't see growing. Just one day I saw it in its full height. And I look at it often. It really couldn't take more than a week to grow as I would have noticed it. Crazy.

IMG_20180606_101420.jpg
 

Bon Sai

Mame
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Think of your tray planting as a ''forest'' on a connected root. Reduce the number of culms to an attractive number and placement. Keep at least 3 culms, cut out below the soil line any poorly placed, too short or too tall culms.

So you wouldn't just shorten culms that are too tall?
 
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Leo in N E Illinois

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So you wouldn't just shorten culms that are too tall?
You could just shorten an excessively tall culm, but it will always look chopped, it won't look like a natural bamboo culm in miniature. Using the technique outlined by John Naka in Bonsai Techniques II, the culm will be as short as you want, and gently taper the way a full size bamboo does in the landscape. It is a technique that requires daily attention during the 3 weeks or so that the culm is developing.
 

Bon Sai

Mame
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You could just shorten an excessively tall culm, but it will always look chopped, it won't look like a natural bamboo culm in miniature. Using the technique outlined by John Naka in Bonsai Techniques II, the culm will be as short as you want, and gently taper the way a full size bamboo does in the landscape. It is a technique that requires daily attention during the 3 weeks or so that the culm is developing.

Maybe I'll have to buy this book.

And maybe I like the size of my bamboo, so for now I'm not cutting anything. The pot is quite big also.
 
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