bambooweb.info

Anyone else in the cold zones growing this one? I returned home and have been doing damage assessment of broken culms & cold damage. We have recently emerged from a period where the high did not reach freezing for ?? 12-15 days, the lows were ranging from -5F to +5F several nights during this period with multiple -2F to 0F nights, strong winds, sunny days, no snow cover, then an ice storm plus 3 inches of wet snow.

To my surprise my 2 yeard old Stimulosa does not seem to have even a single burned leaf and this is a 12-14 foot tall field division of only around 8 culms so it really has no protection at all. It is above an Iridescens, and below vivax 'Huangwenzhu' on a vertical SF slope and these 2 will likely totally defoliate. Sasa oshidensis, dwarf Bissetii and Angusta also look to have not even 1 burned leaf, the 'zone 6' 6 have varying degrees of leafburn and several other species seem to have only minor burn as well but the stimulosa has surprised me - no damage at all in the past 2 winters.

I'm actually surprised to see viable leafbuds on nearly everything that appears to have sustained 100% leafburn. This will be an excellent opportunity for hardiness review.

BTW - massive snapped culms in the Viridis, worse than Vivax, most of the grove is snapped off.

Brad, it will be interesting to see how the bamboos look in a few weeks once the ground thaws. I have areas where water is pooling because it can't penetrate the ground because it is still frozen. This can't be good for the rhizomes.

Brad
I also got Ph. Stimulosa two years ago but I did not have a place ready to plant it so I planted it in my older greenhouse. I do not have a thermometer in the greenhouse but it does not have heat and outside the greenhouse it got down to -12*F. The plant looks great and will need to be transplanted outside the greenhouse as soon as the ground dries out.

Do you have any idea how fast this one will want to spread? I have not dug around mine to check the rhizomes.

Bill

Bill, I picked mine up from Adam Turtle and he said that it was the only one he had dug from the grove at that point so I saw the whole grove from his original and I don't really know much more about it. His looked like it had spread pretty good from 1 original division, but not crazy vigorous. I see that the Lewis' list it as a good screening choice and pretty vigorous so we'll see.

The ground is still frozen, its very windy and sunny but well above freezing, none the less I see more leaf burn everyday. It was over 50F a couple of days in a row but still the leaves are getting whacked. This evening the Stimulosa was showing a very slight burn at the tips, the Angusta none at all. We'll continue to see damage until the ground thaws more and that will be a few more days at least. Like FoxD said, it will be interesting to see how things end up in a couple of weeks. My normal shooting time for 3 species is now only about 4 weeks off but the frozen ground may push that back.