Fargesia murielae, Muriel Bamboo – Planting, Care and Growth

We’re not in Asia, are we? This article will tell you why bamboo is still a good idea in the garden, especially as a Muriel bamboo, and the details on planting, care and growth of the Fargesia murielae right away.

Plant Muriel Bamboo

Muriel bamboo needs a spot in the garden where it can flourish. This means that if you want to plant the Muriel bamboo as a solitaire, you should already have a fairly large free area: the bamboo itself needs at least 1.5 m² to develop into an eye-catcher of impressive size and width, and Of course, this bamboo plant only works if it can be seen with a clear view, so there should also be plenty of free space around it.

This location likes full sun, but also partial shade, and if you want to hide an area behind it a little from the view, the Muriel bamboo will prove a good privacy screen.

This is how you proceed when planting your Fargesia murielae once the right location has been found:

  • You dig a planting hole that is about half a meter larger in diameter than the plant container.
  • The planting hole should be deep enough for the bamboo to sit in the ground exactly as it did in the container.
  • If the soil at the site is humus and rich in nutrients, you should now mix the excavation with the same amount of bamboo soil.
  • Bamboo soil is available for purchase, the substrate contains many clay minerals that ensure good water absorption and permeability.
  • In addition, the bamboo soil also contains a long-term fertilizer in which all the nutrients important for bamboo have been mixed.
  • If your garden soil is sandy or loamy, you should completely surround the Fargesia murielae with bamboo soil.
  • A little soil mixture/bamboo soil is now placed on the bottom of the planting hole, then the Muriel bamboo can be used.
  • Now fill in the substrate all around, so that you press the root ball of the bamboo with your hand.
  • The planting hole can then be filled with bamboo soil mixture, remaining bamboo soil and garden soil.
  • Then let the planting pit run full of water, and the area next to the new planting is also well watered.
  • Now the soil is allowed to settle for a day, then the depression that has now become visible is filled with substrate.
  • Depending on whether you have used pure bamboo soil with fertilizer or a mixture with garden soil, fertilizer is applied straight away:
  • You can mix bamboo fertilizer with the filler soil, but the Muriel bamboo should also like some horse manure.
  • If you live in warmer regions, you should cover the sensitive root area with pine bark, especially in sunny locations.

If you are missing instructions for inserting the rhizome barrier in these planting instructions: you don’t need them. Like all Fargesia species, the Muriel bamboo does not develop root runners, but grows in clumps. It can therefore be planted without a bucket and without a rhizome barrier.

Muriel bamboo as a hedge

You can also use the Muriel bamboo as a hedge around your property. Then you should give each plant about 1.5 meters of space to its neighbor. At the same time, this means that you can create many linear meters of hedge with just a few plants. Here you would also have to consider that the Fargesia murielae will develop into a very wide hedge. A lot of space has to be left towards the fence. If the Muriel bamboo has developed well there, it makes a good privacy screen. This bamboo hedge is evergreen. But because it takes up a lot of space from the depth of the property, it should only be used exactly where this privacy screen is needed.

In the bucket This bamboo also makes a good container plant for the patio, which should be planted in a container that is not too small.

You can even plant the Muriel bamboo in a fairly small pot if that suits the proportions of your patio. You can keep the Muriel bamboo well in check in the bucket, it is very tolerant of pruning . It is best to use pure bamboo soil as potting soil. It is well suited to enable the bamboo to grow healthily in the bucket.

Care of the Muriel Bamboo

Care must be taken when watering the Fargesia murielae: it needs constant moisture, a longer period of drought would damage it. So in summer you have to water vigorously, the warmer it is, the more. However, with a sense of proportion – even if the bamboo is visually very reminiscent of our rush and sedge grasses, it is not a marsh plant and does not like to stand in a marsh-like humidity. And please don’t forget to give the Muriel bamboo a little water on frost-free days, even in winter. He continues to grow and needs to be taken care of.

Muriel bamboo grows vigorously and needs nutrients, especially in the first few years, it should be given bamboo fertilizer once a month in spring for three months. You can start at the beginning of the vegetation period, i.e. usually at the end of March.

Growth of Fargesia murielae

The Muriel bamboo develops strong culms that will grow between half and one and a half centimeters in diameter and between one and a whopping 5 meters tall. The culms also form an impressive wall thickness, around 2 millimeters. The interior of these “tubes” is filled with pith. These culms branch into nodes.

It has already been mentioned above that the Fargesia species grow clump-like and without the dreaded rhizomes, which is actually not entirely correct. The bamboo of the genus Fargesia already forms rhizomes, but so-called pachymorphic rhizomes. These rhizomes are very short and thick and thus form new shoots almost next to each other, which is why these bamboos develop in dense clumps – their rhizomes are simply not suitable for proliferation.

The vigorous Muriel bamboo can achieve between 20 and 30 percent annual growth per year if it is fertilized in spring and watered well as described.

A plant that loves the north

Are you at home on the fresh coast? Forget slacking jasmines, fussy oleanders, bougainvilleas that bloom only hesitantly, get yourself a Muriel bamboo!

The Muriel bamboo shows an optimal development in the cool areas of Germany. It does not then grow by up to a third per year, but more slowly. However, this leads to the stalks hardening faster. The Fargesia murielae grows more upright, the leaves develop later, the young stalks, which are still soft, are not pulled to the ground by their own leaves.

The more sheltered from the wind a Muriel bamboo is in northern German regions such as Schleswig-Holstein, the higher the final height it will reach. Here it can be up to 3.50 meters high, while in warmer locations in Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Rhineland-Palatinate or southern Hesse, e.g. B. often only heights of 2.5 meters can be reached.

In these warmer regions, the sun-sensitive roots of the young plants often suffer. However, this will happen if the bamboo has been at its location for about 3 years. Then the root area shades itself with its leaf mass. The bamboo becomes more sun-tolerant.

If the Fargesia murielae can grow under such favorable conditions, you could then hold back a little when it comes to watering and fertilizing. Even without special care, the Muriel bamboo usually grows about 10% per year, maybe that’s enough for you. Perhaps the Muriel bamboo is also visually reminiscent of coastal grasses that do not thrive at the given location, if it is allowed to develop quite naturally.

hibernate

Muriel bamboo comes from the mountainous regions of the Himalayas, where it grows naturally at altitudes of up to almost 4,000 metres. The origin of the Fargesia murielae is therefore very well adapted to our climate.

He can permanently tolerate temperatures of minus 18 degrees, in the short term much more cold, of up to minus 28 degrees. A German garden owner usually does not have to worry about this bamboo in winter.

multiply

If you want to make a hedge out of a Muriel bamboo, it’s quite easy to do. The bamboo plants can be propagated simply by cutting off part of the root. However, it takes a little longer for it to become a hedge. The cut off parts result in only very small bamboo bushes.

Bogeyman Bamboo Blossom

You may have heard that most bamboo species die off after flowering and fruiting.

Of course, you cannot tell when you buy a Fargesia murielae whether it intends to flower at some point in the next few years. You wouldn’t see it until buds were already developing, by which time it’s actually too late.

But you don’t have to be particularly afraid that your Fargesia murielae will start flowering soon: this species last flowered in 1999, the new generation that has grown up in the meantime will only flower again in 60 to 100 years. More precise information does not seem to be available. But you can at least assume that the next bamboo blossom will only cause you problems at a very mature age.

Varieties of Fargesia murielae

Because in 1999 all the Fargesia murielae were suddenly gone (followed by the sister species “umbrella bamboo” Fargesia nitida, which bloomed in 2006), the breeders had a lot to do, they set to work with renewed courage:

Because both known Fargesia species died shortly after each other, breeders experimented a lot after 2006 to find or breed replacement species suitable for gardens. All possible bamboo species were included. With a species diversity of almost 1,500 bamboos, there was also sufficient test material available, with a wide variety of decorative growth forms.

Unfortunately, it was confirmed that it made sense to select the Fargesia species for planting in the garden: only the bamboos of this genus grow with short rhizomes that do not form runners. All other bamboos try to take over your garden completely with root runners that are sometimes up to 10 meters long and cannot be kept in check without rhizome barriers (and sometimes not with rhizome barriers).

So it was the turn of the Fargesia murielae again. After a few years, the first seedlings could be selected. In the meantime you can again choose from a variety of different Fargesia seedlings, which have increased in number compared to the time before the big bloom. Here is an overview of the new varieties:

  •  F. murielae “Green Arrows” can be very large, up to 4.00 m, it has rather thin young culms and yellow colored older culms turning yellow, it has small, lush green leaves and grows strong and dense
  • “Dragon” grows to a height of around 3.50 m, has decoratively mottled stalks, small, medium-green leaves and reddish clumpy twigs, good container plant.
  • “Deep Forest”: Decorative variety with green culms and small, dark green, lanceolate leaves, upright and overhanging habit when old.
  • “Standing Stone” develops heights of between 2.50 and 3.50 m, thin, strong culms that turn yellow with age, and light green, large leaves.
  • “Silver Bird” is only recommended for cooler regions, where it reaches heights of between 2.50 and 3 m with lush green leaves with a blue underside.
  • Other, smaller varieties that thrive well in Germany are “Falke”, “Heart of Darkness”, “Flamingo” and “Schwan”.

The following varieties should not be recommended for German gardens:

  • “Ami”, “Joy”, “Lava”, “Mae”, “New Century”, “Pinoccio” and “Vamphire” are said to be too slow for local gardens with their rather restrained growth traits.
  • ‘Dino’, ‘Hutu’, ‘Jutu’, ‘Mammut’ and ‘Super-Jumbo’ are bred in Denmark, where it is warmer than here, so these varieties are not certainly frost hardy here.

Conclusion
Bamboo of the species Fargesia murielae is a (not too) willing to grow sweet grass that can be used in a variety of ways in garden design. In addition to cultivation in tubs, as a solitaire or as a hedge, you can plant the Muriel bamboo e.g. B. also use as ground cover, on the roof garden or in the conservatory. Otherwise, the 1447 woody bamboo species, which are among the fastest growing plants in the world, have much more to offer: Individual species can reach a height of almost 40 meters and are used as building material with their 80 cm thick stalks. Bamboo is used as a raw material and as food, for textile production and for the manufacture of cosmetics and care products and as a lucky symbol.

Kira Bellingham

I'm a homes writer and editor with more than 20 years' experience in publishing. I have worked across many titles, including Ideal Home and, of course, Homes & Gardens. My day job is as Chief Group Sub Editor across the homes and interiors titles in the group. This has given me broad experience in interiors advice on just about every subject. I'm obsessed with interiors and delighted to be part of the Homes & Gardens team.

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