What is the Largest, Tallest Bamboo in the World Which you can Grow in the UK?

[@anserbauer309]

Yep, clumping bamboo only at my place. Wonderful stuff.... in the right place. Hoping we can keep enough water up to them with the long, hot Summer forecast to keep them green till next year. Brilliant garden wind-break and evergreen privacy screen from the road and driveway; which will be invaluable in the Winter when the Southerlies kick in and attempt to shred every unprotected leaf on the farm! Growing greenstripe, goldstripe and gracilis.

[@walkingtalkinggardeners]

Hello Anser, like you I am a big fan of bamboo unfortunately I only have the space for a few small ones here. I am growing a couple of red stem Fargesia, but what I am really looking for is a Blue stem Fargesia. Suppliers always have them listed but they are never in stock! Maybe next year one will show up. Simon

[@anserbauer309]

@@walkingtalkinggardeners I just looked up the Blue stem Fargesia because I hadn't heard of it before. It's stunning! We have the red fargesia in Australia, though I suspect both would struggle with the hot summer winds where I am..

[@kengillett3042]

YES clumping is slower but is still an inexorable spreading weed.

[@anserbauer309]

@@kengillett3042 'Weed' is a relative term..... I prefer 'crop' in my situation.

[@stevebacon1026]

Blimey ! Thats what you call a giant bambooow! Thats the type of plant that would be best planted in an unused swimming pool. But unfortunately not many of us have one of them! Good vid at bamboozle site( i heard lornas quiet comment on your grip round bamboo😂! Steve.

[@walkingtalkinggardeners]

Hi Steve and thanks for getting in touch. You are right, you will need a lot of space for some of these species. Flipping Lorna, you can't take her anywhere! Simon

[@comfortablynumb9342]

I used to live in Costa Rica and they have a lot of different kinds of bamboo there. I used common bamboo there for lots of things. And once I went to Zoo Ave, "bird zoo", which is actually a bird/animal rescue center. They breed macaws to repopulate the wild there too, and they have a bunch of parrots that have been rescued. Just outside of the bird rescue zoo I saw some enormous bamboo and I was told it was the biggest kind in the world. It's not native to Central America, I think they said it was Vietnamese originally but I might remember wrong. This stuff was over a foot across at the bases. Absolutely massive. It was tall too. I have no idea how good it is for construction or furniture, but the size should be useful for something. In Costa Rica there is bamboo that grows in the shade that's only a foot tall and it's easy to cut with a weed wacker, and they have huge bamboo, and all kinds in between. I remember cutting some short bamboo about 10 feet tall for tomato/pepper plant stakes. It was just growing between the road and the jungle. That stuff was the perfect size for cutting into plant stakes but it had gnarly thorns at the nodes. The spikes were maybe an inch long and sharp enough to make a serious hole but they chopped off with the machete easily. In Florida I planted a similar "ornamental" bamboo in the backyard of the family house. It took over the backyard and started in the neighbor's, who were less than thrilled 😂. After we moved away I heard that they rented a Bobcat to dig the bamboo out of all 3 yards, and they also needed the machine to take down the shed with a fort built around it with pallot wood. Being my neighbor must have been really extremely super mega difficult. Luckily I calmed down 😂.

[@walkingtalkinggardeners]

Thank you for your fantastic comment. I love to hear the experience of other gardeners from (at least to us in the UK) exotic locations. It sounds like you possibly have the Dendrocalamus giganteus a native to the Yunnan province in China. I to have planted a bamboo near my neighbours boundary but I am hoping to have moved before it becomes a problem. Finger crossed, Simon

[@str8jacket9perf95]

Always wonder why I don’t see more bamboo here. It’s pretty, you can build with it, Beat people with it, use it for shade, very nice.

[@walkingtalkinggardeners]

Hi Ethan, to be honest with you you won't see much bamboo for sale in our garden centres either. They tend to sell what is cheap and easy for the growers to produce. The expensive, choice cultivars and species are slow growing for the most part making them expensive and any plant left in a garden centre for more than a few weeks usually declines as they don't have the staff who know how to look after them. But yes, they are extremely good for beatings! Simon