Dec. 30th.

Here we are at the end of another year again. It was a record breaking year in sales for Lewis Bamboo.  We hope that our bamboo will provide our many customers/friends with years of enjoyment. Lewis Bamboo, Inc. just finalized a large order of bamboo to be delivered to Texas in late February. This order will have us very busy over the next month so our holiday vacation is truly over. The species will be custom dug to comply with specific heights set forth by the landscaper. We will be posting photos of these divisions as we stabilize and prepare them for delivery. Please bare with us for the next two months as we prepare this order. While we will still be doing small mail orders, we will limit the amount of ordering. Due to our commitment to excellence, our main effort will be concentrated on this large order. We also are in the process of clearing land recently acquired. Our new land will of course be planted with bamboo. Hope you enjoyed the holidays and please let us know if we can be of help with any of our beautiful bamboos.

Dec. 24th.

From all of us at Lewis Bamboo, a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!  May God bless and keep you safe through out the holidays!

Dec. 11th.

We hope everyone has a safe and wonderful holiday season. We do appreciate your business over the years and God willing we will continue this path. Our family has been blessed in many ways over the years. With more hard work we hope to be able to continue providing this fantastic plant to all of you. We will be cutting back in the next week or so to enjoy Christmas and New Years. God bless and do be safe over the holidays.

Dec. 2nd

Gayle is on a bamboo delivery to Tennessee while Roger Jr. and I are busy with a large up coming order. Reserve orders for Spring shipping are beginning to come in and we are busy tagging/reserving bamboo divisions for many repeat customers. Below are a few photos of our new toy. This large trailer will reduce the need for the giant truck we have used in the past. We can carry over 50 large field specimen divisions or 6500 lbs in this one. While a large truck is nice the cost of the vehicle, gas, tag and insurance is terrible. All these factors are passed on to the customer by any business. We are greatly reducing your delivery cost by using one of our three trailers when possible.  This 18 footer has double axles with electric brakes. The rear steal door can be lower to add another 4 feet to the length. It is completely inclosed with all sides removable for ease of loading or unloading large divisions from any angle. It is also capable of carry our landscaping tractor with loader and bushog.

Nov. 28th.

Hope you had a great holiday.  We are preparing another load of field specimen size bamboo divisions for delivery a new customer.  The rain has been tough here yesterday, but is suppose to ease up today. We had over three inches Thanksgiving day and delayed our work which is good for a small break. Hope you enjoy the project below and I will have new photos soon of the up coming weekend. Hopefully next week I can show you a new work toy which will save our customer's money!
Nov. 27th.

Hello again and happy Thankgiving! Hope you and the family have a great holiday. Things are quite today and the rain is very heavy.  I do have a special little project I have been working on and hope you find it interesting. You sure will not find this on any other site as it is a one of a kind. I started this little experience two years ago during the rhizome growth period of July 2001.

I chose Phyllostachys rubromarginata 'Red Margin' as the primary species due to its rapid growth rate.  I selected a 3 gallon pot with the rhizome growing out one of the bottom drainage holes of the container. I dug a small hole beside the container and placed a 12 ounce glass drink bottle into it. Working with a rhizome, around 12 inches long still attached to the mother bamboo plant, I placed 3 inches of the rhizome tip into the bottle. I then covered the bottle and all the rhizome with soil. Two years later I dug it up and this is what I had. An individual rhizome unlike a tree root does not grow larger in diameter. It will however in a confined area produce a lot of smaller rhizomes which form from the lateral buds contained along the sides of the rhizome. The buds generally would grow upward forming new culms ( canes ) if they had the chance. This chance was elimated by the confinment of the bottle. After breaking away the bottle the rhizomes appeared healthy, but not as moist and tender as usual. The above ground bamboo plant was very healthy and never showed any signs of stress. It had formed several other primary rhizomes that emerged from other drainage holes and firmly anchored its self in the ground.

You can see on the second photo the primary rhizome. In the third and fourth photo you can see the large primary rhizome winding around looking for a way out. It nevered emerged from the neck of the bottle and I feel as though this particular rhizome system would have died off or broken the bottle.  No extra watering or fertilizer was provided to this specimen plant. It received the same amount of watering as our other nursery stock.  Not living in the city and having a septic tank with field lines this has always been of interest to me. Our present home has over 125 feet of field lines with bamboo all over them. I have never had any problems and I believe this shows why. The open lines do not restrict the growth since it is not a closed system and the rhizomes just follow the path of least resistance.

Hope you enjoyed this and I do have other little ideas I am toying with just for fun and curiosity.

Roger Sr.
 

Nov. 25th.

Here is the latest delivery out of state which took us over 700 miles. Great trip and had a wonderful visit with our new friend/customer. He had everything ready and had done an excellent job preparing the site for their new bamboo privacy screen. They had privacy from neighbors until the lot next door was suddenly clear cut. With a new home coming soon within feet of their house bamboo was needed fast. These large divisions were purchased at wholesale prices and he was extremely pleased with them. Their dog assisted me as much as he could and was eager to learn about his new play area.

Nov. 19th.

Gayle and I are leaving this morning for several days to deliver a load of tall Field Specimen size bamboo to a customer.  Roger Jr. will be around as always to handle everything while we are gone. We should have new photos in a few days of this trip. Thanks for checking with us and we do appreciate all the imput on your bamboo. Our family business has turned into a network of bamboo growers across the U.S. and we couldn't be happier.  Feel free to join our family of bamboo growers and exchange ideas plus growing facts from your local.

Nov. 18th.

We are currently updating our Price List. This always takes a lot of time, but hopefully it is worth it. There is information posted that I have received back from customers. Over the past 8 years many gardeners have stayed in contact with us on how their bamboo is growing. With this new information I can now offer many other species to areas of the country I formly would not recommend bamboo to.  I do not post any reports until the bamboo has had its three years in the ground to become established. From that point the cold hardiness of that species will take hold and true facts can be reported as to how it is performing in that climate zone. Micro-climates within the climate zones also effect the growth of bamboo and these are taken into consideration when I post how a species is doing. Hopefully this feed back from friends-customers will help in making the perfect bamboo selection for gardeners in the future.

( text & photos are copyrighted )     Copyright    © 2002 Lewis Bamboo
 

Nov. 4

We are currently preparing FS size divisions for a delivery in two weeks. Below are three photos of these 12 to 16 foot divsions. Working the groves at this of year removing old canes and potting up new divisions for next Spring is in full swing. In the last two weeks over 1100 divisions were potted up. Below is some of the P. rubro. that was potted last week. Hopefully we will finish in the next couple of weeks and be prepared for Spring ordering. Gardeners begin placing their bamboo orders on hold in Jan. and Feb. These will be shipped during April and May of next year. Thanks for checking with us and just email or call with your questions or orders.

Oct. 28

More photos of our meeting in Miami!

Oct. 22

Here are just a few of the photos of the  INTERNATIONAL BAMBOO FESTIVAL in Miami we just returned from. There were hundreds of bamboo lovers there and it was a great meeting. Hope you will join the American Bamboo Society and learn about this beautiful plant. We toured two large bamboo nurseries while in Miami. One sells over 25,000 bamboo divisions each year! One planting of tropical bamboo I saw was four years old with 7 inch canes over 60 feet in height. Hope you enjoy the pictures.

Oct. 21st.

We returned late last night from the INTERNATIONAL BAMBOO FESTIVAL in Miami, so things are behind! We met many new friends and talked with alot of old friends. These meetings are very valuable in helping us know how different species do all over the world. This information allows us to help you with the correct bamboo for your area and needs. We will get caught up in the next few days and have new photos of the big meeting posted here. Also there will be more info. posted on the Southeast Chapter's web site. On Oct. 17th. the chapter elected to have Gayle Lewis act as the new webmaster for their chapter. She will be making new changes and adding alot of photos. You will be able to click from this web site and go directly there.
 

Oct. 8th.

Lewis Bamboo, Inc. will be participating in next week's INTERNATIONAL BAMBOO FESTIVAL. We look forward to visiting with old friends and meeting new ones from the bamboo community. This meeting is a joint venture between the American Bamboo Society and the International Bamboo community.

The meeting will be held at Fairchild Tropical Garden, Coral Gables (Miami) Fl. David Fairchild was a pioneer in bamboo. He brought bamboo species into the U.S. from all over the world in the early 1900's.

The events will begin on Wed. Oct. 15 with Akio Hizume commencing work on a bamboo tower and end on Sunday Oct. 19th. There will be over 30 scheduled events with speakers from all over the world! It will be an unprecedented opportunity to learn and meet members with a vast knowledge of the bamboo world. Many Doctors specializing in bamboo research will be speaking. Professional bamboo growers from all over the world will be in attendance and giving lectures from their many years of experience.

Plant auctions will be conducted as well sales of many bamboo related items. Many rare bamboo divisions will be offered for sale.  I am sure Lewis Bamboo, Inc. will be adding on to it's collection of over 140 species.

Tours will be given of the gardens at Fairchild. This alone is reason to go as these gardens are one of the world's preeminent botanical gardens. Established in 1938 the 83 acre garden is accredited by the American Association of Museums. For more information about going please go to the
http://www.americanbamboo.org
 

Oct. 7th.

New photos of Roger & Rachel's last delivery with a couple customer pickups. First photos are of  bird aviary in Memphis, Tn. with bamboo around and inside.

'Ezzie' the parrot fell in love with Roger Jr. and went into courting frenzy never seen before. Jennifer, our repeat customer, now has P. aurea, P. nigra 'Black', P. nigra Henon 'Giant Gray', P. viridis 'Robert Young', P. vivax, P. h.p. 'Moso', Ps. japonica, I. tessellatus and several more bamboos for her parrots. Well over 100 bamboo divisions have been planted for this aviary. Below are 40 FS of 'Giant Gray' Henon that were delivered plus more on this latest trip. Federal and state inspection tags can be seen here. These are very necessary as we follow all regulations and are inspected at state-lines.

Below are FS divisions going to the new automobile plant in Montgomery, Al..

Below are 30 of the 3 and 5 gallon sizes of P. viridis, P. rubro. and P. aurea 'golden' that were picked up Sat. Oct. 4th for their new Nashville home.

Oct. 2nd 

All bamboo orders processed after today will be done through Lewis Bamboo Inc.
Lewis Bamboo Inc. is owned by Roger Lewis, Jr. Our son will continue to provide the same excellent service and bamboo as we have. While we will assist him when needed, Gayle and I will try to semi-retire. After 32 years of marriage and many years of hard work we hope to slow down a little.

Roger Jr. left today with a large order of Field Specimens headed to Memphis, Tn. This is the second delivery to this customer. Photos of her first delivery, May 10th 2003, can be seen on this page. As we mentioned below she raises parrots and is busy building a backyard jungle for her beautiful birds. We should have new photos in the next few days of this trip with her new bamboo going into place. She says the birds love flying in and around the bamboo within the aviary. She has bamboo planted inside the aviary and around the perimeter. This lush tropical setting provides the birds with a near natural state.
 

Sept. 30th,

It is going to be a very busy week! 

John Wiggins from Earthscapes Landscaping with his new bamboo.  

Sept. 16th,

Roger Jr. returned yesterday from a delivery of FS sizes to Georgia that went very well with the customer being very pleased. Today we confirmed with landscapers and will begin working on order for a new automobile factory outside Montgomery, Al.  With Winter right around the corner, many gardeners are ordering and trying to get their new bamboo settled in before cold weather. This is keeping our mail orders going strong.  In some climates, such as zones 4 and some areas in zone 5, we are recommending waiting until Spring to plant.  The best times are determined by not only where you live, but the species selected.

Last week another repeat customer from Mississippi returned for a few more divisions. Merle is 72 years young and just starting to collect bamboo. He has over 12 species at this time.  He not only collects bamboo which sets him apart from many, but as you can see from his hybrid electric car he has character.

Sept. 3rd,

This week we will be devoting most all our time preparing for an upcoming order. About one half of the large Field Specimen sizes will be dug and stablized for this order. The other half was dug over 6 months ago and will just need to be balled/burlaped. This order is another repeat customer whose was super pleased with her first 60 FS bamboo divisions and is ready for more. As the order progresses, I will update with more info and pictures. These beautiful 'giant gray' Henon are topped down to 24 feet in height to stabilize and transport. Hope you enjoy seeing as we prepare and deliver these large divisions of bamboo.

August 28th,

This week we dug and potted up 200 divisions of Phyllostachys bissetii. These were two year old plants and will be held until next Spring. Over the winter months we will begin taking orders for these divisions. As with most of our mail orders we will begin shipping in early Spring to their new homes. Our divisions are either potted or unpotted with heavy mulch for the winter months. Some species not quite as cold hardy as the P. bissetii do better not potted. They are dug and placed right into the holding area with 12 inches of hay on each one. Direct contact with the ground provides great warmth throughout the winter months. At our nursery we generally experience winter temps. in the low twenties and sometimes the teens for short periods. All our divisions over winter outside and are never kept in a greenhouse. I have found that greenhouse bamboo do not harden off and when exposed to all the elements fair poorly if not die. Bamboos babied in greenhouses and then planted in the desired location often cannot handle the sun or winter temps.. You should always check with other vendors about this, but  you can rest assured our divisions are ready for full sun and winter temps.. Below is one of four trailer loads of 3 gallon P. bissetii we prepared this week. A grove of Pseudosasa japonica 'Arrow' bamboo left of the tractor. A large grove of the feathery P.h.p. 'Moso' Anderson Clone in front of the tractor.

August 17th,

Another busy weekend,  hope you enjoy the new photos.

This order went to Charles and Joyce from Huntsville, AL.  They are received 10 very nice 5 gallon divisions to provide privacy screening from you know what (neighbors! ).

This load of 20 large field divisions went to Florida. The bamboo will be used for screening out a large commercial building behind a home. We get a lot of looks with some of our long loads and often stop to chat with interested folks on our deliveries.

August 11th, 2003

Here is the latest with Roger Jr. and myself loading up 40 of the Field Specimen sizes headed to Georgia. Many customers are reluctant to rent a truck and make the drive for these large divisions when we don't deliver ourselves. Kristen our new bambusero was a very pretty and petite young lady that drove the ten hour trip, in the largest truck that can be rented, all by herself. We all were impressed with the independance  demonstrated on this trip and the enthusiasm she had for her new bamboo.

The last photo is our mail order size bamboo divisions boxed up and awaiting UPS pickup.

August 4th, 2003

We hope you enjoy the latest updates and have had a great summer. Hard to believe it will be over shortly. Just like my grandmother told me, "time speeds up as you get older".
These photos are of 20 large Field Specimens being picked up this week.  Another FS order is going out the next week. Along with our mail order sizes of 2 and 3 gallon we are still going wide open. Our business is run by my wife Gayle, our son Roger Jr. and myself so while we have excellent quality control with the limited staff it does keep us very busy.

Here is a couple new photos of Gayle and I. Gayle is standing in a grove Semiarundinaria fastuosa 'Japanese Palm' bamboo. This grove begin three years ago from two 15 gallon size divisions. I am in a grove of Pleioblastus linearis that begin five years ago from one 3 gallon division. These bamboos and others can be seen on our Price List. On this page there are prices and other details such as cold hardiness plus the mature size the bamboo will reach.

  
July 16th, 2003

At the present time we are aggressively digging new divisions for next Spring shipping. In the last three weeks my son and I have dug over 900 divisions. We concentrate on 3 gallon sizes, but many 2 gallon sizes are also dug. In the grove the plants chosen for 3 gallon sizes are 8 feet in height and the root balls when dug are 12 to 18 inches across. These plants are topped to 36"- 60" and placed in shaded holding beds with 12 inches of mulch. Once the divisions have proven to be stable more of the excess soil is removed that is not essential to supporting the 'mother' rhizome and allows us to ship the bamboo to you via UPS. On 3 gallon sizes the rhizome should have 4 to 8 nodes (buds) that can form new growth. From these buds new rhizomes or canes will grow and one day form your new bamboo grove.

Large divisions 12 feet or taller are not UPS shippable and special arrangements must be made to obtain these. While these are great looking and can really jump start your grove most gardeners cannot afford these and will order the 2 or 3 gallon shippable sizes. The growth within the first three years is much more with the larger divisions, but if time is on your side then the smaller sizes will do the job just fine. We go to great lengths to explain how your new bamboo will grow under normal conditions and what you can expect down the road.

Roger Jr. Gayle and I look forward to helping you with the right bamboo and time to begin your new project. In many areas of the country it is already too late to plant. While we would love to ship your bamboo right out, we will not unless the time is right and the appropriate bamboo species is available. Just contact us and we will be happy to work with you.
 

June 24th, 2003

Yesterday we dug Phyllostachys vivax. A fact many are not aware of is the tendency for P. vivax to pop at the base. Often while we are outside on the deck walkway which weaves through many groves we hear the bamboo's loud poping. This occurs only in our P. vivax and is always at the bottom 12 inches of the canes. The bamboo is not damaged other than small cosmetic cracks at the base of the culms. This giant timber bamboo reaches over 70 feet and 5 inches in diameter. Due to the giant sizes a groves produces each Spring shipping sizes are very limited. I generally have less than 50 divisions each year that are small enough for our mail order business. The large Field Specimen sizes in the 12 to 18 foot range can be custom dug and are usually always available. Below are a few photos taken during the day.

June 16th, 2003

 This order went to Dalton, Georgia and consisted of  50 Field Specimen sizes. The bamboo divisions averaged 16 to 18 feet in height with 16 to 24 inch root balls. David & Juan seemed very happy to receive their new bamboo. Below are a few photos of the plants.

June 7th, 2003

Today we had the pleasure of a special visitor, Marler Spence from Louisiana. Marler has been our friends for several years and it was great to have him visit our groves for the first time. 

Gayle, Roger Jr., Marler and I toured the groves for several hours. We had a great time reminiscencing about past meetings and talked bamboo all day. Marler was returning from a special and unusual trip. He had been all the way to Hampton Roads, VA. to compete in the Summer National Senior Olympic Games. He placed 8th in the pole vaulting competition! You can see below photos of him proudly holding the vaulting pole and his ribbon. In his youth, he pole vaulted with a bamboo pole and still loves the sport. Closing in on 60 he is not slowing down!

June 3rd, 2003

Busy digging bamboo divisions for next year. Seems unreal this Spring rush is nearly over and most species are promised or nearly sold out. For the best selection of the hard to find species Winter time ordering is best.