Hi, I would love to grow some clumping bamboo as an indoor sepcimen and am looking for a clumping, variegated if possible, shorter bamboo (6-8 feet tall). If you have any that you can share, please let me know. I will be happy to pay shipping, or send other plants in exchange. My list is not updated, but feel free to ask if something interests you. Thanks, mrao

OK, first of all, on the plant you just bought, do you see a 1 segment culm in that pot laying on its side? If so, that is how they started that plant. Before I start, let me explain one reason why some bamboo is expensive. Some of the Bambusa species propagate easily by cuttings and some do not. Some need special combinations of root chemicals to make them root. If you look through some price lists, you will see that Bambusa pervariabilis viridistriata is more expensive than Bambusa eutuldoides Viridi-vittata and that is because people are having a problem producing them in mass by stem cuttings and have to split them up. So, keep in mind that all of these might not start from cuttings, BUT ventricosa and oldhamii both start easily by cuttings. Many people can do a cutting with 1 segment but an old man 20 years ago who was very good with bamboo told me how to do it and it has been better for me to do it this way. You take a full sized culm and cut it off at ground level. The bottom part will start a new plant, so you won't lose anything in the long run. The top part of the culm, may not have enough hollow area in it to root in, so I only use the bottom part that is more hollow. You start by cutting the culm just below the node. Then on the next cut you go past the next node up and make the cut just below the second node. So, what you have is at the bottom there is a node and this is where your roots will come from. Then you have a complete section that is intact. Above that node you have more or less, a vase that is the full length between nodes. Just above that is the other node that starts your next cutting. Can you picture what I am trying to describe? OK, so this is why this works so well. You fill the top part of the cutting with water and this will seep through the top node of the cutting and go into the intact section and will feed and moisten the node where the roots will come from. Because the lower section never gets dried out by being exposed this will increase your success as opposed to the 1 node cutting that can get dried out if you forget to put more water in the "vase". If you put cuttings in a mist bed with a timer, you can get away with a 1 node cutting, but the average hobbiest doesn't have a setup like that so the 2 node cutting works a lot better. Keeping them in shade and giving them lots of water will help increase the number of cuttings that work. All the cuttings might not work, but this should do just fine. You could probably use a rooting hormone on the bottom part, especially if you use one of the liquid types of rooting hormones, but I have never needed that on the types I have done it on. They take several months and it is always best to do it when it is warm, like now is a good time.

I find a shaded eastern exposure (against house and with tree shade so that almost no direct sun hits it ) to work well in my area. I love Fargesia nitida (mine is 'Green Panda').

Good luck. The thing I've noted about growing barely hardy clumpers - in my case, Thamnocalamus tessellatus - is that if they get fully established before cold winters, they will come roaring back from the roots. So that has been how my 'bergs bamboo' has behaved. Got pretty big before polar vortex I (2013-2014), maybe 8' tall, but was never as big again. The dead canes made for nice garden stakes for a few years! OTOH yours are newly planted so YMMV. Like I said, good luck...