*****Lining the planter will help with regulating the soil temps, and keep the soil from having a rapid freezing and thawing cycle. As far as drain holes, I would say that 3/4 in. holes should suffice. For all our lack of sun in SF, one thing I will say for it is that we don't experience any freeze...

Can you explain more about the "drilling holes"? What size? How deep? Were they left as air holes, or filled with compost or anything? Alan: I don't remember the exact size the drill bit, but I would hazard that the holes were about a 1/4-inch wide. I would have gone wider had I had the d...

I live in SF too, and might have some helpful advice for you. At my previous home, I had Ph. Bisetta in three small redwood planter boxes -- each box was about 12in wide, 12in long and 15in deep, if memory serves. They were basically the small, square planter boxes you get from Home Depot. Five gall...

Well, I guess I'm lucky. The branches on the existing culms are now putting out new leaves and I see running rhizome growth popping above the soil. I've generally been successful with bamboo in my location, so I'm gonna assume the division is a success. Fingers crossed!

About two months ago, I sawzalled two types of bamboo from my dad's house: Golden Hedge, and some unknown version of Nigra. For some reason, I ended up with a rhyzome clump with no culms on it, so I decided to toss it in some dirt to see if it would propogate. It's now growing nicely -- but I can't ...

This specimen is a three-culm division of some variety of black bamboo that I sawzalled from my Dad's yard about two months ago. When I first divided it, one of the top branches looked dusty/chalky white, and not black. Now the culms themselves have these white dusty/chalky white patches radiating f...