Tri-color bamboo (Phyllostachys aureosulcata ‘Spectabilis’)




I bought this bamboo at a plant sale at Quail Botanic Garden 4 years ago in a 10-gallon pot. It has beautiful canes, yellow with green groove on alternating sides up the length of the culm. The cane is especially beautiful in spring when it is suffused with red (really purple-red) color. The red color seems to be more intense when the bamboos receiving plenty of sun. The leaves were also variegated early in the spring. The leaves were green with white stripes. So, both the cane and leaf are very ornamental. Unfortunately, the red color faded when the cane matured to pure yellow color with only one patch of green groove per segment. The white stripes on the leaves were also less clear when the leaves mature. It is an evergreen bamboo and the canes seemed to last 2 or 3 years leaves turning yellow.

The cane was about 1 inch in diameter and height is about 12 feet. It is a very aggressive runner. Although it is planted in a flower bed surrounded by cement wall, very year, it found some ways to go under the cement wall (usually through holes drilled for irrigation PVC tubes) and sent runner out in spring. By the time I found it, it is usually 10 feet out of the wall. Fortunately, the new shoots are fairly soft and can be broken easily. The underground roots were a different story. It is very tough and extensive. So, it is quite an effort to dig them up. But it only sent new shoots in the spring. So an annual spring vigilance should control it quite well. It is such a beautiful bamboo that it is worth the trouble. The canes are also very useful in the garden. I use them to make support for vines and tepees for tomato and cucumber. The young shoots are also edible. The taste is kind of bland, but quite crunchy. It is also a lot of work to peel the hard outer layers to get the tiny edible parts. So, it is probably not worthwhile to grow it as a vegetable.

The tir-color bamboo is pretty easy to grow. It is irrigated 3 times a week and only fertilized early in the spring when new shoots start to poke out of earth. I don’t know how hardy it is since we don’t get frost in San Diego, although I have seen it listed as hardy to to -20ºF.

I have also planted in a pot and it grew quite well in the pot. It did not get as tall or thick as in the ground, but it is about 7-8 feet tall with half an inch diameter. The upright canes have beautiful arching angle and are very graceful.

Overall, the tri-color bamboo is a beautiful ornamental plant that can be enjoyed in the pot or ground with a barrier. It also supplies abundance of useful cane for various garden uses.

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