CompuServe Thread

Richard- Sorry for being do dense about retrieving your message, but I got it the second time. About sources. I sell it (Burt Associates, PO Box 719, Westford, MA 01886 (508) 692 3240), and locally a very reliable hobbyist nursery is David C. Andrews, PO Box 10358, Oxon, MD 20750. Don't know whether he has P. nigra for sale. A widely touted clone of P. nigra is called 'Hale'. Since it is less upright than the standard nigra, you should try to stay away from it. If that is all you can get, take it. Black bamboo is hard to find. You should experience no trouble in growing it – I grew it in Zone 5. Keep it well watered the first year, and fertilize very little. Thereafter it should take care of itself, responding to fertilizer (high nitrogen) if you care to bring it along quickly. I'd suggest, particularly if you have any sort of lighting that you remove the lower branches from the culms, and thin the grove from time to time so that you can see into the grove. Even if you are growing a screen, the culms are so attractive that the eye stops at the grove and does not go beyond. Unpruned, you get a shrubby effect and you might as well grow privet. But I'm a nut on pruning – it brings out the Bambuslichkeit in bamboo. First German word I have ever coined. Good luck – AlbertI