Those are awesome pictures!! Woohoo! I had tried a sort of half hearted thing like that with my one boo (yellow groove) last year, but I never thought to use pipes like that, that's so awesome! I just got a few small culms that were growing right next to each other and wove them together. They did twist a bit like the pictures you have, but nothing that spectacular. I tried bending the growing culm into an arch, but the boo didn't like that. I found as long as the new shoot didn't get any damage, it was okay. I took a needle and carved the date and names into the bamboos, I found that you have to wait until it's hardened, or else it can kill the culm, or weaken it so it breaks the next season.

Really spectacular pictures, thanks for sharing!! Wish I could grow them that wide. :)

Lewis Bamboo has some nice pics of doing that as well... https://lewisbamboo.com/square-bamboo/ - given my culms are about 5/16" at the moment I think I'll have to wait several years before trying this method :-)

Danny-

Great picture. I was hunting for one to go with my post and couldn't find anything.

Danny, great picture! That is so neat.

A quick pictorial update - first shoot just making its way out of black tube after around 4 weeks - more details up at bambooweb.info

Thanks...keep those coming :-)

I took off one of the clear containers completely yesterday, and also the top halves of all 3 of the black tubes.

My understanding is that bamboo needs sunlight exposure to harden. Is that correct? The shoots/leaves that were in the black tubes have a sort of albino appearance at the moment.

I'm planning on leaving the other two clear tubes and the 3 black tube bottoms on for another ~30 days, until the growth is 100% complete. Idea being to limit the spread of branches/leaves where I'd rather have sun / sightlines go to other plants / culms.

It will be interesting to see what happens to the parts of the bamboo that are now exposed to sunlight. I don't know what will happen.