Dendrocalamus giganteus Seeds | Giant Bamboo

Giant bamboo with thick blue-green culms rising in a dense clump — Giant Bamboo (*Dendrocalamus giganteus*): Poaceae, the clumping dragon bamboo of Southeast Asian forests.

LATIN NAME: Dendrocalamus giganteus

COMMON NAME: Giant Bamboo, Dragon Bamboo

Plant Profile

Giant bamboo is one of the largest grasses on earth, and it is a clumper rather than a runner, which is the first thing a gardener needs to know. It sends up culms twenty-four to thirty metres tall and fifteen to thirty centimetres thick, in a tight stool that widens slowly outward instead of colonising the garden by underground runners. The culms are blue-green when young, ageing to grey-green, with prominent nodes and a white ring below each one.

The leaves are small for the size of the plant, and the whole architecture is a mast of hollow columns that flex in wind. It flowers only rarely, in gregarious events that sweep through a region every forty to sixty years, after which the clumps die. The seed is a grain, and it is produced in such quantity and so seldom that growers may wait a lifetime for a crop.

Science & Biotechnology

The flowering biology is the most remarkable thing about the genus. All the clumps of a species in a region flower at once, regardless of age or condition, and then die; the mechanism appears to be an internal clock rather than an environmental trigger, since plants in cultivation flower on the same schedule as wild ones. That synchrony means a single flowering event can supply seed for an entire region and then leave none for decades, which is why seed is scarce and expensive and why vegetative propagation is the norm.

The culm is a composite material of extraordinary efficiency: a hollow tube stiffened by nodes and a silica-rich outer layer, which is why bamboo is studied in engineering for lightweight structures. Giant bamboo is also one of the fastest-growing plants on earth, with culms extending up to thirty centimetres a day in the wet season, and it sequesters carbon quickly in both culm and rhizome.

Uses & Benefits

The culms are a construction material across Southeast Asia: scaffolding, flooring, rafters, water pipes, fences and furniture, and the thick-walled lower sections of this species are among the most useful of all bamboos. The shoots are edible but bitter and must be boiled and soaked before use, since raw bamboo shoots contain cyanogenic glycosides that cause illness. The leaves are used as fodder and for wrapping.

In the garden giant bamboo is a statement plant for a large plot, a tropical garden or a screen, and because it clumps it can be used without the root barrier that running bamboos require. It needs space, water and warmth, and it is fast enough to give a mature screen in three or four years. It is also grown in large containers for a few years, though the plant will eventually burst any pot.

Growing from Seed

Seed is rare and short-lived, so sow it as soon as it arrives. Sow on the surface of a loose, free-draining mix, cover lightly, and keep at twenty-five to thirty degrees with high humidity and bright light. Germination is usually within two to four weeks, and the seed loses viability within months, so old seed is a poor bet.

Pot the seedlings individually as soon as they are large enough, and grow them in a warm, humid glasshouse for the first two years. Plant out in spring into deep, fertile, moist soil in full sun, in a site sheltered from strong wind, which can snap young culms. Water heavily in the growing season and mulch thickly; the clump will begin to size up in the third year.

Our Take

The giant of the clumping bamboos: a building material and a landscape plant, if you have the space and the climate.

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