According to Wikipedia, bamboo plants are one of the fastest growing species of plants in the world. The reports of growth rates up to 35 inches (about 1 meter) per day are nothing short of amazing.

But as with all “up to” statements, presumably this is a particular species found somewhere else, and grown under ideal circumstances. Then again, my goals are more modest (but still pretty amazing). I am interested in the possibility that it might grow to 3-5 meters (10-16 feet) in a few months. Around the land, this could provide some greatly needed shade in quite a short amount of time. And at the office, we have a new gravel parking lot that has absolutely no shade at all, so quick growing bamboo may be an easy and quick way to rectify that.

So… as mentioned in an earlier post, we planted 2 bamboo plants from Ayutthaya that we received from Praew’s family, and I waited for the first shoots to sprout up so I could start measuring them. And I saw the first shoot for the first time last Saturday. (I didn’t look on Friday, so I’m not exactly sure when it actually first appeared.) And boy, did it take off growing.

My first photo measurement was Wednesday morning at 43cm tall:

Thursday morning’s reading was 55 cm:

On Friday morning at 11AM, I measured it at 69 cm:

And just out of curiosity, I measured it again on Friday at 6:20PM and found it to be about 75 cm tall:

So this appears to be consistently about 13cm (5 inches) per day.

Conclusion: If it keeps this rate up for a whole month, a single shoot will reach 3.9m (13 feet), which is in my target range, within one month!

Now that is a fast growing plant. Of course, it will eventually slow down (it isn’t going to grow to 48m at the end of a year). How high it grows, and how quickly, presumably depend on the variety of bamboo. This particular variety isn’t supposed to be the biggest; it is the variety that Thais eat the shoots of. But I will check back in a month and see, and we have 2-3 other varieties around to try planting.

More updates to come.