Jan–MarApr–JunJul–SepOct–Dec
Planting
Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
← Explore Plants
Plant · P-153
Moso Bamboo
Phyllostachys edulis
Moso Bamboo is a genuine vegetable crop, not just a timber plant that happens to be edible - young spring shoots are a prized delicacy, with a published yield of 5 to 8 tonnes per hectare a year. The same grove also yields far more timber by weight: canes that have gone into water pipes, construction, weaving and papermaking, growing up to three feet in a single day at peak season. It needs steady moisture through the growing season - a droughted grove survives but will not shoot - so it belongs below a pond overflow or on the wet side of a swale, never on a creek, where its litter disrupts stream life. Its running rhizomes spread aggressively and need an annual root-pruning cut to stay contained, though goats grazing that same perimeter will eat the escaping shoots for you.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun · Partial Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 7–10
- Soil
- Sand · Loam · Clay
- Moisture
- Well-Drained · Moderate
Vertical layer
Canopy- Soil pH
- 6–8
- Plant type
- Grass
- Mature height
- 25–60 ft
- Mature spread
- 10–25 ft
- Plant spacing
- 9.8 ft
- Root type
- Rhizome
- Spread pattern
- Root
Keep exploring
Similar plants
Discover more plants with shared forest layers or growing conditions.
Acai
Euterpe oleracea
Açaí Palm is a fast-growing clumping palm of the Amazon floodplain, sending up to twelve stems from one base. It is grown for the…
Canopy · USDA 10–11
Allspice
Pimenta dioica
Allspice is a lowland tropical tree whose dried, unripe berries taste like nutmeg, clove and cinnamon in one fruit - which is exactly where…
Canopy · USDA 10–12
Almond
Prunus amygdalus
Almond flowers earlier than almost any other cultivated tree, which is its biggest weakness as much as its gift to early pollinators - a warm…
Canopy · USDA 7–9
American Basswood
Tilia americana
American Basswood is famous for the bees - mature trees hum audibly for several feet around when they bloom in early summer, giving one of…
Canopy · USDA 3–8
American Beech
Fagus grandifolia
American Beech is a slow, long-lived shade tree that can establish and eventually fruit even under an existing forest canopy, unlike almost…
Canopy · USDA 3–9
American Chestnut
Castanea dentata
American chestnut once carried the sweetest nut of any chestnut species and covered more than 200 million acres of eastern forest, but an…
Canopy · USDA 5–8
The deeper layer
Plan what comes next.
- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
- Locked ecological function
- Byproduct
- Locked ecological function
Behind the record
- Locked research reference
- Locked research reference
- Locked research reference