My Trip to Beautiful Bamboo in Groveland, FL

I was in Central Florida for a week in mid-March and I made a point of visiting Beautiful Bamboo, a Bamboo nursery in Groveland, a small community somewhat half-way between Orlando and Ocala.

The varieties they grow are generally tropical ones as you might guess, though they also carry an assortment of temperate running bamboos, including Phyllostachys bambusoides Madake, which I sadly didn't have time to view.


Below are some of the highlights.

This is a cool shot of the towering Bambusa Oldhamii - these must have been 40-50 feet tall.

Here's the same variety with my hand in the shot for scale - largest culms I saw were easily 4-5", though these are from a somewhat smaller stand.

Bambusa Chungii - a supposedly "blue" bamboo, though I found it more of a greenish-white.  I realize that most so-called blue bamboos are "blue" because of the white waxy film on the culms but this particular variety did not really come off as blue.  Still pretty unusual and interesting.

Bambusa Eutuldoides Viridi-Vittata - a relatively rare variety that seems to bear some similarity to Bambusa Multiplex 'Alphonse Karr', though with a more open clumping habitat, smaller leaves, and perhaps less of an open-vase shape.

Here is the Alphonse Karr for comparison:

One of the most unusual bamboos I have ever seen, here is the Bambusa vulgaris Wamin (Dwarf Buddha Belly).  The swollen nodes are very unusual, as is the branching.

A cool shot of a local hanging out on a Bambusa Lako culm:

Lastly, the new additions to my collection - I got a tiny Bambusa Oldhamii and a 3-gallon Alphonse Karr. Neither look very good right now, and may never look very good! I'm planning to grow both indoors under controlled conditions.