I got old, okay?

Next spring will bring on giant culms, some possibly bigger again than those six-inch-diameter monsters that emerged this year in the grove’s centre. By how much will the grove expand next October? A half-acre? And the year after that?

Time to hand on to someone younger and more adept at all the practical tasks. Opportunities enormous, certainties nil. One caution: between December and August one can relax and enjoy owning a bamboo forest. Or do optional tasks. Between September and November, there will be essential tasks. And springs will only get busier as the forest really does become Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon on the Macleay. The southern hemisphere needs to get ready for moso.

Here’s an advertisement for the place.

Plain, functional house and dam, no shedding or extras. I’ve experienced the usual pleasures and headaches of rural living. Mostly pleasures. But there is one exceptional thing about my property. I’ve left it vacant for months on end – obviously not in spring! – each year of the last three. Nobody came but the guy who reads the electricity meter. The trickiest part about selecting any rural property is the safety issue: secluded does not mean secure.

Here I’ve been safe in a completely private setting for many years. One reason my bamboo isn’t often talked about locally is that few people ever see it. Yet I’m not far from town: when energetic and training up for my European pilgrim hikes, I’ve been able to walk to Kempsey and even back. Seclusion and security without isolation: that’s a common claim but a rare find in bush living. It’s my property’s biggest plus, apart from, well, obviously…

***

UPDATE:

Today I did what I hate doing, and cut two new poles of this season. Control and shape of the grove is best achieved by removing those delicious shoots (some of which I’ll be eating tonight from the freezer) before they start to soar. But every year I miscalculate and leave a shoot to grow where it shouldn’t be growing.

New poles are heavy, brittle and all but useless. Their only value is as a flavouring and aroma for tea, as far as I know. Certainly, when I cut these big guys today they splattered a powerful perfume just like that of my bamboo-roasted puerh tea.

Really, one should never waste a pole by cutting it fully grown in its very first year – but it happens.

What also needs reporting is the length of these felled giants. One was twenty five paces long, one was a couple of paces longer than that. In a grove that still has not peaked, I seem to be getting moso as big as moso is supposed to get.

Just so potential buyers or investors know: this region produces serious timber bamboo, just as it produced those kings of yore, the red cedars, along with the great eucalypt hardwoods.

Not just a hobby-farm thing, is what I’m trying to say.

Because of my age and my very slender “skill-set”, I may soon have to let go of it all. I’ve known that for a while; this boom season has confirmed it. I’d love to expand my moso, keep it as a reserve -  but it probably should pass to new owners who have the energy, capital and ability to take it to commercial levels. (I’m someone for whom “commerce” and “industry” are two of the noblest words in the language. It’s just that I’m not terribly good at either.)

In recent posts I’ve remarked on the need to understand the species not in theory but in place. The place is called Dondingalong, the grove is in ex-dairy “tallowood” country between the Pacific and the Great Divide, and it swarms with hungry, brawling possums and rapacious wallabies. The good seasons that bring rain also bring strong southerly winds at shooting time; the sun is strong, the frosts can be sharp.

I know how to help moso along in this country.

But a large and mature grove needs professionals. For example: here’s a guy in Anji, China, who can cut a moso pole with professional ease and speed.

Er, I can’t do that.

Here’s a guy who harvests a fat moso shoot the way I should be doing it.

This is an inspiring story of an early planting of moso in Louisiana. I just hope these people realise that an untidy leaning pole, even if dead, may be helping to support heavy new culms in their first year. But I’m not certain of my theory, and I do love the open effect resulting from such tidiness…so just enjoy.

Enthusiasts have one thing in common with professionals. We can be bitchy. I just fancy that my biggest poles and shoots are a touch superior to the biggest ones shown in these films. And my grove hasn’t peaked yet!

Of course, I would say that, wouldn’t I?

You can also see again how the awkward transition to mature grove is hard on the late-adolescent culms of a previous year. Having poured their energy into sending up newer and bigger culms, many will soon lose their light.

I complain. But, really, it’s exciting.

***

It should be clear, if you’ve read previous posts, that I know nothing about horticulture or bamboo in general. I’m besotted with moso, and fostering moso on my land is what I do. This means I work in isolation, and have developed my own ideas about what works. As to whether I’m right, clearly I’m right about something, because I have a large and healthy acreage of moso, with culms to rival those of Asia. However, I’m in the position of the American businessman who knew half of his advertising did not work – but he did not know which half. A portion of what I am doing is unnecessary, but I don’t know which portion. By adhering to certain policies, I’m getting results: this year saw zero wind damage and only a few animal attacks on huge new shoots. I’m not game to change the formula.

My belief is that moso should not be started on rich flats or even on very “permacultural” swales. It should not be planted out in cleared ground, however sheltered. Strong light and direct heat are the enemies of new shoots and culms. Browsers, wallabies above all, should be repelled by keeping fresh blood-meal on all accessible new shoots, even if there are thousands to be tended. Possum-friendly branches of nearby trees should be cut off, and such trees may need to be possum-proofed, perhaps by heaping spiky bunya pine branches around the trunks. Someone may ignore all these cautions and succeed, but that is how I think on the matter.

This brings me to lantana. It is an official pest in Australia, and should be eliminated. I have no gentle or “natural” solutions to the problem of lantana in pasture or bushland. However…

On the right you see a wall of lantana, on the left you see pioneer moso of this year, which has used the lantana for protection and insulation. Now that the lantana’s useful role is fulfilled, I have trampled down its brittle stems all around my new culms – using this highly specialised equipment:

That’s a wooden plank, used for lantana surfing. I chuck it on to the lantana, then jump aboard to crush the stuff. I have done acres this way.

Does the lantana come back? It does, but providing one continues to walk about the grove and bruise the new leaves, it gradually dwindles to an inconspicuous ground cover which cannot flower or fruit. It is best described as a flimsy bully, throwing out abrasive but fragile stems to ward off intruders. However, it is also an ideal companion plant, and has very few real defenses when trampled or “surfed”: the only thing that stops me clearing quickly is the presence of other woody weeds like tobacco, privet, cassia and cockspur, which are not nearly as brittle and surfable as lantana. [CAUTION: Only lantana is a useful weed in this regard; the sooner you get rid of wild tobacco, privet etc the better. Also, let me repeat: Lantana is an official pest, and I'm only suggesting it may have some unexplored value as a ground-cover and companion plant in very limited circumstances.]

If you do your surfing  right, and with follow-up control, an impassable thicket of lantana will look like this in an amazingly short time, without any digging, cutting or poisoning:

In a grove’s formative years, the difference in height between one year’s growth and that of the next is not so significant in actual metres. A giant culm, however, can tower several metres above its immediate predecessors. Several in one area will block out the sun for anything branching well below, however large. Now, when a culm is deprived of light, it dies prematurely; consequently, many fine culms in my grove are perishing after only a couple of years. It’s part of a natural and long-desired transition to adult production, yet I’m not happy that some cherished bamboo poles have to die off before a good harvesting age.

None of this matters in the long term, since one wants a forest of adults culms, and that’s now going to happen. But even if those prematurely dead culms can’t be harvested, shouldn’t they be cut and taken away for the sake of neatness?

The answer is this: moso knows what it’s doing. Look harder at the photo above, see the drab lower culms which are leaning and even criss-crossing.

Then consider what is happening through the entire grove during this spring burst. Out on the perimeter, new shoots have grown and branched rapidly.

These scattered pioneers, of moderate size, seldom break in wind. The established part of the grove, however, sends up culms much more slowly and puts a lot more juice into them. These are the towering giants we’ve been talking about, and for some weeks they are tender and very heavy with sap. (How would you like growing to your full lifetime height in under two months?) At the base they are in shelter, but their tops are above everything and exposed to everything, especially to the worst southerly and westerly winds.

If you had to design a perfect support for these tottering monsters, it would be something strong but springy, with the ability to bend and slide while offering just the right amount of resistance, preferably through fine, wiry branchlets…

That’s right! Those seemingly useless dead or dying culms are acting as ideal supports for the new generation of larger culms.

What is good order and economy for tidy humans, may be disorder and waste from the point of view of the plant or animal you are trying to raise.

This sweaty new giant is vaguely pornographic…

It’s all so cool that I’ve invited a few culms into the yard. I could have eaten this guy when he was a tiny shoot in late September. Instead he can be a pet.

They are prepared in any number of ways, as described in previous posts, but lately I’ve been having them as bamboo-shoots-rice or as English pickles for a cheese sandwich.

Nutty and crisp, moso shoots are simply a delicious vegetable which I can enjoy in abundance.

Now it turns out that bamboo shoots, and those of moso (phyllostachys edulis) in particular, are being taken seriously as a source of Chlorogenic acid. This phenol or anti-oxidant, now marketed as the product Svetol, has a role in the dietary treatment of diabetes. Apparently, it slows glucose release.

Chlorogenic acid also has potential in other areas of medicine. This is the kind of thing I usually ignore, but it’s good to know that, once I’ve boiled out the toxic elements from moso shoots, what’s left is doing me some good.

Wiki’s article would suggest it’s not just a fad. There are many other sources of Chlorogenic acid, but moso shoots are the best way to take it on board. So eat ‘em up!

With its six inches of diameter, our five-week-old culm is now the height of many fully grown trees. I’m guessing it’s between twenty-five and thirty feet – but I haven’t checked for some hours.

Most people don’t believe that something can grow like this. Or that in a couple more weeks it will never grow another millimetre in height. Or that it will have a subsequent subterranean and canopy growth as remarkable as its height-spurt.

Everything about moso is extreme, exceptional, radical, ambitious.  Growing moso is like living with a compulsive gambler – but one who usually wins. It’s a ride!

Well, he’s grown in the last thirteen days.

Evidence!

This isn’t the biggest shoot, but, since I took the photo, it’s bigger still round the base.

Another perspective on another giant, just a few days old. This one is now enormous around the base, and kind of scares me.

The ideal conditions have not produced more shoots, just big ones, which is an ideal development. My guess is that moso here in Dondingalong can achieve its global maximum size.  Hundred foot poles are not out of the question. I have a few patches of red soil where that could come about.

If you look to the right you’ll see a link to a German web site where Europeans who love moso pop in to shriek their delight over a new culm of just a few metres. You might ask: if something can inspire people in a such a pitifully reduced form, how is it possible that, in a place where it can reach a full and stupendous potential, it is little thought about?

There’s no answer to that.

Some of these poles will have trouble with high winds in the vulnerable week when they are at full height but have not branched. The south slope that has been a good, cool nursery to moso is a little too exposed to freak winds now that the culms are towering. Until the grove achieves critical mass, and has poles of equal size to support one another, there will be some breakages.

But what can you say about a species that comes out of the ground in spring, grows to full height in seven weeks, and is ready to be used as a premium timber within five years? A good deal, Australia?

***

Note these black, plasticky-looking things atop my computer.

In a future post, I’ll talk about my favourite use for moso bamboo. I’ll be talking about…

…bamboo charcoal!

Because I’ve wanted lots of it, I’ve seldom cut or sold my moso. The main use for me has been shoots, every spring.

Now the grove is more of a forest, and I have many good poles of the right age for cutting. (Five years from the ground to harvest is a good deal for timber. I could talk about sustainability, but it’s not my kind of language.)

Still don’t want to start mass harvesting for timber, but I’m experimenting with various uses and effects.

Decor is one thing. People like bamboo as a dramatic indoor or patio showpiece, often in a vase.

Here are some pieces of five year culms treated in various ways: freshly cut and briefly cool-roasted, freshly cut and cool-roasted for hours, cured and cool-roasted for hours etc…and beneath is a piece of shade-dried bamboo with no treatments at all.  The variations are infinite, but a low roasting temp and gradual cooling would seem to be essential. (Moso is not inclined to breakage, but it can split.)

They say the right degree of firing can make a piece strong enough for a bicycle frame. I’m guessing it would be best to use a fresh cut piece and roast it very slowly, very precisely, with very gradual cooling.

That’s just a guess.

Surprisingly, I know so little about moso beyond my precious acres of it. My undies are made of moso. How on earth do they do that?

Mostly, I just like looking at moso.