Bamboo is different from most plants, in that it is genetically programmed to grow to a specific height and no taller. A new bamboo culm (cane) shoots in the spring, reaches its full height over the next two to three months, and then never grows any taller. A culm lives for seven to fifteen years, depending on the species, regularly replacing its leaves (bamboo are evergreen) and then dies, but by then many new culms will have sprouted to replace it. It may take a new bamboo grove five years or more to gain the root mass and energy needed to reach its maximum height but thereafter it will not exceed that height.
The bamboos include the fastest growing plants in the world, gaining as much as 36 to 47 inches a day in an optimum climate (such as China and Japan). Our climate isn’t perfect but it is quite good for most temperate bamboos, and some species can grow a foot on a warm summer day in the Victoria area provided they are watered and fed well.
Generally bamboo shoots and grows vertically in the spring and early summer, stops vertical growth and puts out side branches and leaves mid and late summer, collects energy and grows underground rhizomes and roots in the late summer and autumn and then waits, staying dormant over the winter until the soil warms in the spring when the cycle begins again.

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Is bamboo difficult to grow?

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Bamboo Barriers?

What’s the best planting method?

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Selecting the right bamboo variety for your landscape: