Crawford and Class and Remarkable Bamboo

by Mary Jasch

The shshshsh of rustling foliage whispers in the air. All around is green -- from the closely rising slender stalks to the papery canopy of this single plant that spreads over an entire acre. This stand of swishing green is Phyllostachys nuda, a running timber bamboo. Resident robins roost in the branches and, while enjoying the great cover the bamboo affords, freely provide much needed fertilizer to the plant.

“The fun part is, on a breezy day it's really quite interesting," says Bruce Crawford, professor of landscape architecture at Cook College, Rutgers, the State University, and director of Rutgers Gardens. He points across the meadow at the Gardens, where barn swallows inhabit another one-acre patch of P. nuda.

The two plants of P. nuda, one for each grove, were planted as a windscreen for honeybees in the late 1950s. It took about 50 years for the stoloniferous root system of each plant to support an acre of above ground growth. Nothing else grows in the groves -- just P. nuda. “Bamboo eliminates all other types of plants. It is a 'queen monoculture.' It's very territorial," Crawford explains.

P. nuda grows 30 feet tall and is hardy to 15 below. Although it spreads 20 to 30 feet each growing season, Crawford says it's not aggressive; indeed, gardeners at Rutgers have been keeping it under control for many years. Culms age and die out; others are removed. New culms appear almost black, eventually turning green with white-ringed evenly spaced nodes. A cut culm reveals a mostly hollow stem, hollow in the internodes but solid at the nodes.

Because it only flowers once every 50 to 100 years, it is unknown whether P. nuda will survive flowering. “It's not true that once they flower they always die. When it flowers it may die," says Crawford. “It produces so much seed it wears out."

Crawford and nine undergraduate students in his class of Garden Design and Implementation have designed and created a display garden featuring bamboo species and cultivars at the New Jersey Flower & Garden Show. They'll use Phyllostachys nuda culms from the grove at Rutgers Gardens to construct a wall and a water fountain in a 16 x 25.88 foot garden based on “The Golden Rectangle" of precise proportion developed by Pythagoras.

“It (Golden Rectangle) has the aesthetically most pleasing proportions," says Crawford. “A casual meandering path leads to a gravel patio area. The path will pass through the Phyllostachys, which will hopefully add depth, dimension and mystery." Various bamboo species and cultivars will be planted along walkways of washed stones and a gravel patio accented by bamboo in containers. Additional flowering plants, such as Pulmonaria longifolia 'Bertram Anderson', Heuchera x 'Amber Waves', Hypericum calycinum 'Briggadoon'and Carex flagellifera, and Ophiopogon planiscapus 'Ebony Knight'will be dreamy.

Crawford and class are out to showcase the merits of these much aligned members of the grass family. “I think people are interested but frightened of it," he says. They also want to illustrate that bamboos fulfill an incredible number of uses in the garden.

Take Fargesia....

Fargesia denudata and murielae, two shrubby clumping bamboos, are hardy to minus 10 and 20. Considered to be some of the most beautiful bamboos, these evergreens have short side branches on long culms, creating an arching effect. They spread 1 to 1˝ feet a year and grow up to 12 feet tall.

The shiny stems of F. denudata lend a dark image. It prefers shade, growing under maples in its native China and Japan. At Rutgers Gardens, it grows under oaks. “Fargesia seems to kill trees it grows around," says Crawford. “It's a monoculture. Whether it's roots or allelopathy."

Fargesia plants bloom the same time all around the world because they are all from the same mother plant, resulting in the same genes. It also happens to be the preferred food source of the Giant Panda Bear and so, in the early 1990s when Fargesia flowered all around the world, a shortage of panda food occurred. Fargesia murielae has been flowering for about 12 years now in some places, and is being propagated by seed. Growers expect these plants will not flower for another 100 years. An F. denudata in Mountainside, New Jersey, bloomed in 1996 at nine feet tall and eight to nine feet wide. It produced three seedlings before it died.

In the Golden Rectangle garden, students have positioned Fargesia rufa 'Green Panda' as a specimen.

Want a great, low maintenance ground cover or a feathery short hedge? Try Shibataea kumasasa, a small running bamboo that grows to seven feet tall. In 1994, Rutgers gardeners put in 50 to 60 plants along the north side of Holly House between it and a sidewalk. Now, 12 years later, the patch extends 70 feet long by 5-6 feet wide and 3˝ feet tall and has not come up through the asphalt or sidewalk. Although hardy to -5, Crawford says its condition and survival depends on how long each cold stretch lasts, rather than any given temperature. Residential in scale, it requires almost no maintenance. The Shibitea at Holly House has not ever been watered in 12 years.

This understory plant creates a monoculture and so performs well as a groundcover, remaining fairly green in winter in central New Jersey. It is used as groundcover in the show.

Sasa veitchii, another small running bamboo, grows slowly to four feet and makes a great groundcover, keeping out weeds, up to Zone 6. Its leaf margins turn tan and look variegated at first frost, giving the plant winter interest until new green leaves break in spring. This low growing plant can be cut and kept to 2 feet tall. New growth flushes above and from the base of culms. Older culms flush new leaves that cover the previous year's leaves.

“Over 10 years it will double its size and has great texture and sound," says Crawford. Students will use S. veitchii in the show to demonstrate its use as a good groundcover for shade.

Phyllostachys aureosulcata 'Spectabilis,' a form of running Yellow Groove bamboo, has bright yellow culms with a green sulcus. Each growing bud creates a groove, called a sulcus, above each branch. Its stems bend and contort, independent of light source, giving a zig-zag appearance. Set this shallow rooted bamboo an inch above the soil with a 30-inch barrier below ground to prevent spreading. When planted in sun, the new culms are tinted red. At the show, it will stand as a specimen.

The tropical arrow bamboo, Pseudosasa japonica, is perhaps the most common bamboo around. Hardy to 0 degrees, it is an ideal container plant either inside the house or out, requiring little humidity and withstanding low light. At the show, see it decorating the garden in terra cotta or glazed containers.

The garden of mystery by Crawford and class will whisper to passersby, “Deer don't eat bamboo" -- an added plus to the worthiness of this woodiest of grasses. After weeks of drawing, researching, and choosing the best details and the right plants, the students await to teach bamboo. “This is an experience they would never do or have otherwise," says Crawford. “To be there and working until 1:00 in the morning is a fun experience."

Let them entertain you...

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published February 11, 2006