Propogating Weeping Mexican Bamboo

[DoomsDave]

This thread was inspired by a topic about containing bamboo.

I'm not a big bamboo fan, but this is an exception. It's Mexican Weeping Bamboo, Otatea acuminata.

The picture below is in glorious Pandovision^TM by the infamous Pando, who visited on July 15, 2017.

The plants have been in the ground a few years, and I'd like to control them by cutting off pieces and making them available for others who will love them prudently.

How, exactly, do you do that? How long does it take? My understanding is that bamboo can take a long while to reestablish. True? All thoughts appreciated, flash that big body of knowledge.

[Kailua_Krish]

I just dug up pieces of the root with a few shoots attached and planted them elsewhere. Of course this was in the middle of the florida summer so plenty of heat and moisture. Id say about 75-80% took. Probably would have been higher with better care

[DoomsDave]

1 hour ago, krishnaraoji88 said:

I just dug up pieces of the root with a few shoots attached and planted them elsewhere. Of course this was in the middle of the florida summer so plenty of heat and moisture. Id say about 75-80% took. Probably would have been higher with better care

Thanks!

A few questions:

How much root? What did you use to dig with? Are the roots really tough? How many culms did each piece have?

[Jdiaz31089]

Dave, it you figure out how to do this successfully, I'd love to have a starter plant. This was my favorite non-palm plant from the tour of your garden. 

[5150cycad]

They should propogate pretty easily. I divided painted bamboo before and was successful using a pick axe, spade shovel, fungicide and rooting hormone. The last two are probably unnecessary, I used them as a precaution You can take out a pretty good sized clump and further divide that clump into smaller sized individual plants. Try to get at least 2-3 stems with each division along with as many roots as possible.  Try and get some leaves with each stem as well to promote some photosynthesis. If you can't get a good rootball, cut the stems and leaves back a bit so the plant doesn't put all its energy towards saving leaves instead of producing new roots. The best time to propogate is early in growing season when temperatures aren't too hot. After the plants are divided and potted up, I would find a shady spot or put them under a shade cloth until they develop new roots. The roots like to be rootbound so I wouldn't put them in a pot much bigger than the rootball. Bamboo is a pain the back, good luck. Weepimg bamboo is worth the time. 

[TexasColdHardyPalms]

Tropical bamboo can be propagated with rooting hormone using just a culm cutting, but this is a less tropical species and you will most likely have to dig up a rhizome 

[Gonzer]

Even with roots cut military haircut-style, they root albeit slowly provided you don't let the medium dry out. Just dig down, wobble a section, cut and pot, then go back to your regularly scheduled programming.

[Kailua_Krish]

I used a lopper with a fairly sharp blade to divide the culms once I dug down to them using a shovel. Then i pried them out of the ground with fairly few roots. I did leave top stems attached with leaves but made sure they were cut in half to reduce transpiration but still allow for some photosynthesis. The roots were pretty tough and I tried to have 2-3 culms with each one however not sure it made a difference.

[DoomsDave]

4 hours ago, krishnaraoji88 said:

I used a lopper with a fairly sharp blade to divide the culms once I dug down to them using a shovel. Then i pried them out of the ground with fairly few roots. I did leave top stems attached with leaves but made sure they were cut in half to reduce transpiration but still allow for some photosynthesis. The roots were pretty tough and I tried to have 2-3 culms with each one however not sure it made a difference.

 

[DoomsDave]

21 hours ago, Jdiaz31089 said:

Dave, it you figure out how to do this successfully, I'd love to have a starter plant. This was my favorite non-palm plant from the tour of your garden. 

Maybe come to a PSSC auction, where some will end up . . . .

18 hours ago, 5150cycad said:

They should propogate pretty easily. I divided painted bamboo before and was successful using a pick axe, spade shovel, fungicide and rooting hormone. The last two are probably unnecessary, I used them as a precaution You can take out a pretty good sized clump and further divide that clump into smaller sized individual plants. Try to get at least 2-3 stems with each division along with as many roots as possible.  Try and get some leaves with each stem as well to promote some photosynthesis. If you can't get a good rootball, cut the stems and leaves back a bit so the plant doesn't put all its energy towards saving leaves instead of producing new roots. The best time to propogate is early in growing season when temperatures aren't too hot. After the plants are divided and potted up, I would find a shady spot or put them under a shade cloth until they develop new roots. The roots like to be rootbound so I wouldn't put them in a pot much bigger than the rootball. Bamboo is a pain the back, good luck. Weepimg bamboo is worth the time. 

 

17 hours ago, TexasColdHardyPalms said:

Tropical bamboo can be propagated with rooting hormone using just a culm cutting, but this is a less tropical species and you will most likely have to dig up a rhizome 

 

15 hours ago, Gonzer said:

Even with roots cut military haircut-style, they root albeit slowly provided you don't let the medium dry out. Just dig down, wobble a section, cut and pot, then go back to your regularly scheduled programming.

 

14 hours ago, krishnaraoji88 said:

I used a lopper with a fairly sharp blade to divide the culms once I dug down to them using a shovel. Then i pried them out of the ground with fairly few roots. I did leave top stems attached with leaves but made sure they were cut in half to reduce transpiration but still allow for some photosynthesis. The roots were pretty tough and I tried to have 2-3 culms with each one however not sure it made a difference.

 

Thanks for the advise!

[Funkthulhu]

If you want to mail domestically (wink, wink, nudge, nudge), wrap the culm/rhizome in a damp (not wet) paper towel and seal in a ziplock baggie, then chuck in a padded envelope or flat box.

[PalmatierMeg]

That bamboo scares me. I fear it may go crazy here. I do have two clumping dwarf golden goddess fighting with a Caryota at the corner of my garden lot. They do the job of blocking view of an intersection to the south but that's all the bamboo I want. Some of it is beautiful but wow! the maintenance headache.

My son in Rockville MD beats back an aggressive running bamboo some idiot neighbor planted maybe decades ago. A nasty piece of botanical invasive.

[Gonzer]

It's not a serious runner like some but it can wander. I consider it "free-range" bamboo. I had one shoot pop up in my neighbor's toilet while he was using it, gawd that guy could scream!

[Hillizard]

I wanted to add some comments on this topic. A bamboo specialty nursery in Santa Rosa, California [ http://westcountybamboo.com/ ] offers another variety of Otatea : acuminata aztecorum “Chica” (dwarf and good in pots). There's also Otatea glauca 'Mayan Silver' - which is like O. acuminata but has a more open habit and doesn't fall over from the weight of the leaves. 

I have a collection of clumping bamboos within an area restricted by barriers. I esp. enjoy my Bambusa eutuldoides 'viridi vittata' (pictured below). It is an open clumper, can take some frost, has intermittently variegated leaves, dense foliage and bright yellow culms which are striped when they emerge. It helps shade some of my understory palms.

For those in colder areas, there's a sport of Phyllostachys nigra called ‘Daikokuchiku’ [“Giant Black”] that grows larger than the species. Below are pictures I took of how it's grown in a galvanized water trough at West Co. Bamboo. Since it's a Phyllostachys it will run... very rapidly, so I grow mine in a huge terracotta pot.  I managed to overwinter Bambusa lakko outdoors here in a sunken pot in a protected location, but the jury's still out on whether that will thrive here in interior NorCal. 

 

Edited August 22, 2017 by Hillizard