The slideshows are photos from a plantation owned by a foundation. The 'Plant Lady' hopes to train younger people before she gets too old to continue maintaining the grounds and the Butterfly Garden. As for my little patch in the photos above, it's designed so that when I'm no longer able to tend it, it can mostly revert to wild and the other parts be mowed over with a big mower. Because of rampant growth in this part of the country, I have lots of wide paths that are kept mowed so I can watch for snakes. And the Michelia did smell heavenly, even with only a small portion of open blooms. The native azaleas smelled good. It was a marvelous tour.

i have recently been aquiring and growing various types of bamboo and done research for several weeks now. but one thing i can;t seem to find is a Relatively Close estimation on average rainfall in the native climate of Moso Bamboo. actually now that i think of it i could just look up the location of groves in china and then look at the rain fall in that area. ok but on to the next topic. RESPONCE @ kudzu9: Like Mike_Marietta_SC_z8a had said, those could be 2 reasons, another reason is when you perchase moso from a supplier such as Lewis Bamboo, they trip the bamboo top to fit it to the box. i buy most of my bamboo from them, if you get 3 gallon sizes and up the tops will be trimmed. trippimg the top greatly hinders Moso and other giant bamboos. when the shoots grow, as previously stated in this thread, the shoots will basically syphon vital exsessive nutrients from the neighboring culms. so when you order bamboo that has had the culms trimmed but the rhizomes are still large and will be producing large shoots, then the new shoots will not be able to syphon the much needed nutrients from the other culms. so if you grow bamboo from seeds then they should not be trimmed, also as previously stated any damage to the root systems will also greatly hinder the transfer of nutrients. then the roots take damage or are bent it's like kinking a water hose that feeds the new shoots. this also is regretably a more then likely happening from ordering bamboos. for both reasons i'd recommend buying either 2 gallon sizes or buying them as seeds from a reliable source. GROWTH RATE: from what i have gathered most bamboos Culms grow +30% in hight each year and the rhizomes can grow anywhere from 2-5 feet a year depending on conditions. also the rhizomes have 2 "rumors" as to how far out they can grow which i can't seem to disprove one or the other as of yet. 1 rumor is they can grow as far out as the tallest current Culm. the other rumor is they can grow indeffinately depending on soil conditions and as long as the newer culms increase in size. So say the "source Point" of your bamboo has a culm of 80' high, then the rhizome can grow up to 80' from that spot; however say down that rhizome about 20 feet away from the source location there is a newer 80' tall culm. then that new culm can have up to another 80' away from it. so it could grow 100' from the plant site at that point, and so on. Finally: i live in the houston texas area and will be growing a japanese / tropical styled grove. so far i'm planning on using "Weavers Bamboo" for the primary walls around this 1-2 acre grove, with Nigra Black in the corners, with Moso and Giant Grey Henon throughout. i was also considering adding Windmills and Blue Palms inside near an elaborate bamboo, shishi odoshi styled fountain and underground irrigation systems invovling soaker hoses, if anyone else can think of some black, jade, or rich dark green colored plants, then please toss me an email. hopefully i'll have this grove up and running in a few years in which case anyone would be welcome to visit the grove.

Not going to affect the wall, not the full sized full vigor typical plant (or similar cultivars, like those sold as 'Nana') most used for hedging here. Will eventually grow above head height, after many years, if living there long enough. Same situation as other slow-growing shrubs that may last a long time, after so many years of so many inches per year of growth you end up with a fairly big bush. The main problem I see with 'Otto Luyken' here is that this one seems particularly susceptible to Prunus Shot Hole, with the result that local plantings rather often look as though vandals had been firing shotguns through the bushes. Other than that a handsome perky evergreen shrub. Some fruits are sometimes formed but I do not very often see spontaneous seedlings resembling that particular type. Of course, it may give off some seedlings of normal (more typical for the species) appearance - I don't know.

We have a couple of dwarf redbuds. only been in the ground a couple years, so hard to give a full response. Of interest, locally, redbuds are nearly non existent in the area. Old timers refer to them as dead-buds, so there's something in this region, be it altitude, spring weather, winter wind, summer humidity...whatever. The spring of 2016 locally was brutal. Early warm weather followed by long lingering cool, damp, seasonally cold weather. local orchards were hard hit, certain crops locally were wiped put entirely (cherries, apricots, peaches, plums. only pears and apples had any harvest and they were down signigicantly). We have 5 redbud trres. Two recently planted dwarves, still under 3' tall, and two with trunks close to 6", ten to 12' overall size, and one weeping at about 5' tall. the larger trees and the weeper had very few flowers and took forever to leaf out...if you were impatient, you may well have yanked them. ultimately, they leafed out fine, so we'll see this coming spring. The smaller two looked happy as clams. they bloomed fully, leafed out as though there wasn't a single problem. Was this a size and protection thing? time may tell.