 |
Guadua angustifolia |
Long term maintenance of a clumping bamboo is simple. Each year when the new shoots break through the ground, select some larger ones to grow up into mature culms. Cut off any shoots you don't want to grow just below but close to ground level selecting to allow space between culms for aesthetic and access reasons. It also helps to cut off and remove culms older than 4 or 5 years, thus removing the old wood to maintain the clump's vigour and youthful appearance.
With few exceptions you can cook, store and eat the shoots you remove at your leisure (they taste even better if you cover them with a planter bag full of straw when the tip first appears, to exclude light as they grow until they are cut off to eat).
Old culms removed have a thousand uses such as furniture or an elegant garden pagoda (consult the book "BAMBOO WORLD" for details and technique). Most bamboos can be radically modified in shape and size should you so desire, by removing and leaving very few shoots(even only one) to grow each year, and/or by cutting the two month old new culms off at the height you desire, and/or by removing young buds on the lower parts of culms of species that normally have low leaf, in other words performing a form of topiary or bonsai on a bamboo either growing in the ground, or even in a pot if you want it to remain very small.
It’s easy to form and maintain a trimmed hedge, and it only requires cutting to height once per year!