The Bamboo We Grow
Bamboo is listed by common name, followed by the botanical Latin name. Some bamboo species sport several common names, depending on your neck of the woods. Latin names keep us all on the same page.
Height ranges reflect what you're likely to see in north Georgia. Final maximum height will vary with growing conditions.
See more farm photos on Instagram!
Bamboo Short List
Click a bamboo or scroll down to browse the detailed list.- Arrow
- Bissetti
- Black Bamboo
- Dulcis
- Gray Henon
- Japanese Timber
- Koi
- Moso
- Green Onion
- Red Margin or Jackson's Bamboo
- Robert Young
- Spectabilis
- Tranquil
- Vivax (Green)
- Vivax (Golden)
- Yellow Groove
Clumping Bamboos: We Don't Sell Them. Why? Glad You Asked!
Atlanta, Blame Mother Nature
Clumping bamboos don't like Atlanta/ They're either Mountainous & Tropical: Mountainous clumpers (cold hardy) withstand our winters, only to fry in the Georgia summer. Tropicals (think banana tree) thrive in the summer, but die to the ground after the first hard freeze.
We don't grow clumpers on Argo farm. They can be kept alive, but will never grow large enough to provide a screen for your landscape.
Most people who want clumping bamboos are concerned about root spread. Root spread is certainly something you must consider when planting bamboo. If this is your concern case, we can discuss ways to control spread.
Bamboo Poles
Premium Bamboo Poles
We cut poles about 10 feet long, a favorite size among wedding planners, decorators, and other craftsmen. Our poles are $10 each.
Weddings remain the most popular use for our poles, from a cool beach wedding in the sand to a traditional Tamil wedding (green pole with 7 nodes)! Our customers also use them for dramatic artistic displays to physical therapy and even for building bicycles! Perhaps the coolest use of our poles was by the Country music group Sweetwater Rose to film their music video, Magnolia High!
Argo Farm Hawaiian Shirt
Had he visited our farm, Frank Zappa might've asked, "Is that a real Hawaiian shirt or a Sears Hawaiian shirt?" Ours are real: 100% cotton, coconut buttons, and made in Hawaii! The Argo Farm Hawaiian shirt boasts a bold bamboo design and our name emblazoned on the front. I "imported" these shirts from a contact I made on the Big Island after a vacation to our most southern state. $49.95. (E-mail us for ordering information.)
Argo Farm Headware
I boldly chose to frizbee-spin the ubiquitous Southern baseball cap into the Mud Creek swamp in favor of a chic chapeau to shade my balding pate. (Alliteration rocks!) Stand on your head in the middle of a bamboo grove or balance poles on your noggin: Dirt and stains are easily remedied by tossing our hat into the washer. Two colors available. $17.95 (E-mail us for ordering information.)
Bamboo Detailed List
Bamboo is listed by common name, followed by the botanical Latin name. Some bamboo species sport several common names, depending on your neck of the woods. Latin names keep us all on the same page. The height ranges I've listed reflect what you're likely to see in north Georgia. Of course, final maximum height will vary with growing conditions.
- Typical Mature Height Range: 12' to 16'
- Our Customers Like It Because: Tall narrow canes create a very tropical appearance; excellent shade-tolerant screen.
- Description: Used in historic Japan to make arrows. Great for green screens where height should remain below 20 feet (foliage can begin as low as one foot!). Large leaves are an adaptation to a low-light environment. Planted in China today to indicate that you respect your mother and will take care of her. Also tolerant of salt spray, although I admit that we haven't seen much salt spray in these parts since... oh... the Paleozoic Era.
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- Typical Mature Height Range: 23' to 28'
- Our Customers Like It Because: Fast spreader, extremely cold hardy so no worry about freeze damage in Georgia.
- Description: Dark green canes offer a visually "cool" appearance, but direct sunlight can brighten it to a light gold. Good medium-height green screen. Extremely cold hardy.
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- Typical Mature Height Range: 23' to 28'
- Our Customers Like It Because: Black canes offer a visually striking contrast to other bamboo species.
- Description: Black bamboo is the most sought-after ornamental bamboo we know. Canes emerge as green, but fade to black after a couple of seasons. The black canes create a pleasing contrast when planted near other greenery. Some canes tend to lean, giving it a graceful appearance.
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- Typical Mature Height Range: 30' to 35'
- Our Customers Like It Because: Fatter canes make the bamboo look large for its height.
- Description: The name, Dulcis, means sweet, in reference to the taste of its shoot. Our customers are more attracted to the visual impact of the fatter canes, making Dulcis appear as large as a timber bamboo without the height. The canes will sometimes display faint creamy vertical stripes.
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- Typical Mature Height Range: 25' to 30'
- Our Customers Like It Because: Time-tested bamboo for the Georgia climate; makes great fishing poles.
- Description: Long-time Southern favorite, introduced to America in 1882 in Alabama. The canes have a irregular growth patterns at the bottom that make terrific hand grips for fishing poles or walking canes. Exposure to direct sun can produce bright golden canes that offer an alternative to the ubiquitous green bamboo stalk.
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- Typical Mature Height Range: 4' to 6'
- Our Customers Like It Because: Novelty of the giant leaves, grows well in shade.
- Description: Famous for sporting the largest leaves of any bamboo in cultivation! (Leaves can grow up to two feet long and four inches wide!) The broad leaves enable it to thrive in shade and provide a tropical overtone to your interior decorating or landscaping. Customers who make their own sushi like to serve it on the giant leaves for a dramatic culinary presentation.
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- Typical Mature Height Range: 50' to 60'
- Our Customers Like It Because: Alternative to green timber bamboo.
- Description: Black bamboo's big brother, this timber bamboo eventually produces gray poles that sometimes seem almost blue. Poles are strong and resemble Japanese Timber bamboo. Sometimes billed as "Blue Henon," but the amount "blue" depends on growing conditions, available light, and the peculiarities of your own eyesight (or as one customer put it, "It's like a blue tick hound: It ain't really blue.").
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- Typical Mature Height Range: 50' to 60'
- Our Customers Like It Because: Produces tall, strong poles.
- Description: Similar to Vivax in height and size. Requires more time to reach maximum size, but the reward for your patiences is a pole with a thicker wall than Vivax and thereby stronger. Every year, we get at least one snow/sleet/icing event. The additional weight sometimes breaks a few Vivax poles, but our Japanese Timber has never broken.
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- Typical Mature Height Range: 16' to 22'
- Our Customers Like It Because: Unique ornamental, not too tall
- Description: The flamboyant cousin of Fishcane (or Golden) bamboo. Koi sports the same knuckly, arthritic node patterns along the base as Fish Cane. However, instead of golden canes, Koi canes are green with occasional golden vertical stripes. Some leaves are also decorated with yellow stripes. Otherwise, Koi enjoys the same growth characteristics as Fish Cane bamboo.
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- Typical Mature Height Range: 65' to 70'
- Our Customers Like It Because: Potential for the largest bamboo you can grow in Georgia.
- Description: If you want the tallest bamboo that will grow in Georgia, Moso is your ticket. The poles can reach diameters greater than six inches. However, you won't see this size over night: plants can require longer to reach Godzilla size than other timber bamboos in Georgia. Occasional late frosts can wreak havoc on this early shooing bamboo, so have patience. The further south of the Tennessee state line, the better. For you stir fry fans: the bamboo shoots in your Moo Goo Gai Pan are typically Moso.
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- Typical Mature Height Range: 8' to 10'
- Our Customers Like It Because: Ornamental nodes resemble green onions.
- Description: A cousin to Arrow bamboo, this highly prized ornamental gets its name from the swollen cane nodes that resemble the bulb of a green onion. Large leaves add to the tropical look. Great in shade!
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- Typical Mature Height Range: 40' to 50'
- Our Customers Like It Because: Fastest spreader we grow.
- Description: Best all-around choice for a tall, fast-growing green screen. I've seen it grow so thick that a cat couldn't crawl through it. Easily outpacing pine trees, Phyllostachys rubromarginata produced the largest tonnage of dry wood per acre of any of any bamboo tested by Auburn University. Grows more vigorously in the South than in its native China!
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- Typical Mature Height Range: 35' to 40'
- Our Customers Like It Because: Large ornamental.
- Description: A personal favorite, Robert Young bamboo is a beautiful ornamental and gains an attractive height and diameter. This bamboo was named for Robert A. Young, USDA horticulturist who wrote extensively about bamboo.
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- Typical Mature Height Range: 25 to 30 feet
- Our Customers Like It Because: Zig-zag yellow canes with green stripes.
- Description: This "spectacular bamboo" grows bright yellow culms with a green stripe. A rare bamboo, Spectabilis rivals Red Margin bamboo as an excellent screen due to its fast, upright growth. In sunny locations, new culms have a spectacular red highlight. This species also forms occasional zig-zag patterns at the base and makes a stunning outdoor container plant.
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- Typical Mature Height Range: 8' to 12'
- Our Customers Like It Because: Dramatic leaf verigatio
- Description: Variegated foliage makes this a prized ornamental. Grows very well in containers and shade. Great landscaping addition to water features.
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- Typical Mature Height Range: 50' to 60'
- Our Customers Like It Because: Fastest combination of spread and height of any bamboo we grow makes it our best seller!
- Description: Our most popular seller! Your best choice for the maximum height & spread in the minimum time. Very hardy and vigorous, Vivax will survive stresses (drought, frost, etc.) that would kill other bamboos. Mature groves can produce poles more than four inches in diameter, with the first branches well above 20 feet. Excellent for creating a green screen when you want to block the view of power lines, a water tower, or the neighbor up the hill.
- Typical Mature Height Range: 50' to 60'
- Our Customers Like It Because: Golden Vivax displays green "bar codes" on mature canes.
- Description: A relatively rare bamboo here in the U.S. Golden Vivax boasts the same height and rapid growth of Green Vivax, but Golden has buttery colored canes with occasional vertical green stripes (nicknamed "Bar Code Bamboo" for this reason).
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- Typical Mature Height Range: 25' to 30'
- Our Customers Like It Because: Bright yellow stripe offers dramatic contrast to dark green canes.
- Description: The "yen" to the Specatbilis "yang," Yellow Groove presents the opposite colors to Spectibilis while retaining similar growth characteristics such as height and zig-zag canes. The yellow stripes add a tangy visual zing to this mid-size bamboo.
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