One of MANY Heavenly Bamboo bushes in the back yard. Picture taken 12-16-09.
FAMILY: Berberidaceae
GENUS: Nandina
SPECIES: ?
COMMON NAME: Heavenly Bamboo
I had never saw a Heavenly Bamboo until I cane to Mississippi! These shrubs are an excellent evergreen with year round appeal. They have dark green leaves, some of which may turn red in the winter. The produce white flowers in late spring through early summer followed by red berries that hang in clusters. Some of the red berries on mine stay on year round, but I think most of them fall off.
They are winter hardy in zones 6a-9b (-10 to 25 degrees F). They can grow to a height of at least 8′. I have heard some people say to prune the old growth to control height. Well, folks, that isn’t the way I did it. In fact, the shrubs kind of stayed the same height except for the new growth that springs up through the old leaves! While it did also seem that most of the flowers and berries were on the new growth, so when you prune the new growth, you loose most of the flowers and berries. There seemed to still be plenty to go around, though.
I am getting new growth up from the bottom, ground level. Should that be removed?
Jon,
Thanks for visiting my blog! Heavenly Bamboo can be left to grow as it chooses but you can trim it almost anyway you want. I have left some of mine to bush out on the bottom and just trim the new growth on the top to control the height. Some of the taller specimens I have trimmed all the lower growth to make them look like trees. If you want to maintain their height buy pruning out the new growth just cut the stems that are green and haven’t gotten the “woody” appearance yet. I always cut down to where the new growth starts so the cut will be hidden by the older stems. If you trim to much, however, you may not get any flowers and therefore no red berries. I will put pictures on the blog explaining in more detail at a later date. Thanks again for visiting the Mystical Mansion and Garden blog!