Description
This is the most important genus for use in the exotic garden, containing more than eighty medium to large species with some of the best and most versatile ornamental bamboos available. They are also much used as commercial and cultivated crops worldwide. They are widely dispersed throughout the temperate and subtropical zones in eastern Asia, mostly lowland areas in eastern China, where they are almost forest like in their Chinese homeland, where there are hot summers and cold winters. In cooler temperate cultivation like here the UK with shorter summers they are usually more restrained and better behaved, forming tight clumps.
Phyllostachys nigra has certainly become one of the most popular bamboos in recent years. It is usually a tightly clump-forming and well-behaved bamboo arching with age, growing from 4-12m tall, averaging 6m by 1.5m in ten years. The culms (canes when harvested) are green when juvenile, then mottling and ageing to jet black, with a maximum diameter of 5cm in warm climates though much less in the UK. Its leaves are comparatively small and green, up to 8-13 cm, forming a dense canopy of foliage. Unfortunately this wonderful bamboo is now rare in the wild.
There are other forms available like Phyllostachys nigra ‘Boryana’ and Phyllostachys nigra ‘henonis’.
Common Name: Black bamboo
Latin Name: Phyllostachys nigra
Tenderness Rating: Hardy
Ease of growing: Easy
Position: Full sun to dappled shade
Soil Condition: Well drained soil
Phyllostachys nigra – Buy black bamboo online.
