# Chusquea Bamboo Terrarium



## hydrophyte (Jun 5, 2009)

*Chusquea Bamboo Terrarium*

I have a start on a new project that will involve a special plant in combination with a bed of terrestrial mosses and maybe a couple other elements. _Chusquea_ spp. bamboos are characteristic understory or open habitat foliage in cool, moist mountain areas in Mexico, Central America and South America. They are very graceful plants with foliage that grows in tight whorls around slender, arching stems. They remind me of the places that I have visited in the mountains in Costa Rica and Mexico. I saw especially beautiful oak and pine forests with _Chusquea_ understory in Mexico. Mexico used to have so many wonderful mountain forests, but most have them have just been burned up and turned into lonely, jagged deserts. 

I am still thinking about which enclosure to use, but I intend to make something like this other setup that uses a single coast redwood with _Pseudosasa owatari_ dwarf bamboo, terrestrial mosses and replica stones. This terrarium was not a very good visual design, but I like the way these things look together. They call to mind a Japanese garden. So my idea is to make something like this, but use the _Chusquea_ bamboo as the main plant. 



















The plant came this afternoon with the mail! I ordered C. culeou "Hillier's Form" as a 1-gallon plant from Bamboo Direct. This plant can grow to 10' tall, but I have found that some woody bamboos can be restricted in size quite a lot by potting in a smaller container and cutting out culms that grow too tall. Bamboo Direct recommends this one for bamboo bonsai and they explain that it can be easily maintained at about 12" tall. 

I like to watch for plants in movies and on TV. A film from a few years ago, _El Aura_, has a number of deer hunting scenes shot in a forest in Patagonia where you can see _Chusquea _bamboo growing under some kind of tall cedar tree, maybe _Austrocedrus chilensis_. It's a good heist movie. I recommend it. Here is the trailer.






I will get some pictures of this cool plant maybe tomorrow and try to figure out which enclosure to use for the whole setup. I might decide to build a new tank.


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## hydrophyte (Jun 5, 2009)

I got a few pictures tonight. Here is the whole plant.










The tallest culm (stem) is three and a half feet tall, but I can cut the three taller culms down to about 18" and still have about half of the existing foliage. 

Here is more detail. The foliage is quite fine, so there should be enough light penetrating through it to grow a moss turf. You can see the whorls with many branches. This is one of the things that distinguishes bamboos from other grasses; the culms can last for several years and branch several different times with new growth. 










You can see the jointed bamboo culms better at the base of the plant. This plant sure is cool. I hope I don't kill it with this experiment.










I'm still thinking about enclosures to use. I think it would look really great in a larger cylindrical terrarium, but I don't have anything like that. It might also work in a longer rectangular shape, such as a 29-gallon fish tank.


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## Y0urbestfriend (Jan 31, 2014)

very nice looking plant, especially under that dim lighting


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## inka4040 (Oct 14, 2010)

Can imagine this towering out of a 12 long rimless, gracefully arching over a mossy embankment with an iwagumi precipice type arrangement. Gorgeous plant!


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## hydrophyte (Jun 5, 2009)

Y0urbestfriend said:


> very nice looking plant, especially under that dim lighting


Thanks so much. These plants look really cool in their habitats. You can also plant _Chusquea_ in a landscape in areas with the right climate. They do real well in the San Francisco area. 



inka4040 said:


> Can imagine this towering out of a 12 long rimless, gracefully arching over a mossy embankment with an iwagumi precipice type arrangement. Gorgeous plant!


Yeah it will look good with stones and mosses. I think I need to maintain the whole plant inside of the enclosure so that it will have more humidity. I should be able to train it to only 12"-15" tall.


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## hydrophyte (Jun 5, 2009)

Bamboos, especially Neotropical species, are botanically interesting plants. This is a neat site to check out...

Bamboo of the Americas (BOTA) - Bambues de Las Americas » Bamboo of the Americas (BOTA)


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## hydrophyte (Jun 5, 2009)

I was able to divide three plants out of that one pot and I potted them up in 5" net pots with ABG mix. I set them up in the 65G vert tank with pretty bright light and they are already starting to rebud on the existing stems. I don't see any new roots yet. I hope they will adapt. This will be a neat terrarium plant if it grows.


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