What’s new?
Actually, in the case of the garden, what’s new is some new bamboo shoots!
In the photo, you can see the new sprouts of bamboo that have emerged from the base of the plantings of Spectabilis that we added to the garden just a few weeks ago.
To be more specific, these plants are Phyllostachys aureosulcata Spectabilis.
And now I know why the sprouts of new growth are referred to as “shoots”--they tend to shoot upward from the soil at a very rapid rate and they’re as pointed on the end as the nosecone of a rocket headed skyward!
One day they weren’t there, and the next day they were.
This photo was taken at about day four of the new growth.
Observing the plants pretty much on a daily basis, we observed that they grew during the first month at the rate of about six inches per day.
In just about a month’s time, the new bamboo stems appear to have attained a height of approximately 12 to 15 feet!
This illustrates why bamboo, the fibers of which are now being used in the manufacture of many products ranging from shirts and trousers to paper plates, is such a great and green (not to mention fast-growing!) ecologically sound renewable resource.
