Winter damage

[johnw]

TC

And finally the Rufa closest to work.

Hard to say what's what with this Rufa, a lady nearby saw me shooting it and came up and told me the canes through the fence got stuck on the sidewalk for a few days and people were walking on it. And dogs have been doing a number on it - bottom right corner. I wondered why it looked so crappy. All could be cold damage too though or sidewalk salt too - but not the doggy bit.. The parts on the other side of the fence look ok.

[tncry]

John those pics show a lot of green. Halifax should be a nice location to have Phyllos size up yearly. I'm guessing when I start leaving mine uncovered on the island the leaf burn will be bad every year. However if I can get a large enough root mass and mulch yearly I have hopes of bamboo similar to that largest alata against that house.

I planted a rufa against my Dad's white garage. It grows twice as fast as any other rufa I've planted. It was still green and nice looking after -21 but I haven't seen it after our stretch of -22 to -24 for a few nights in a row. It's probably covered in snow now so I couldn't get a pic.

The winds were really high here too. The secondary roads are still snow covered and slick. We need some above zero temps or some salt.

TC in PEI

[pokenei]

TC - Took a few shots this afternoon.

Three different aureosulcata 'Alata' on this cold day.

Those photos look more like 'Aureocaulis' to me.

[johnw]

Those photos look more like 'Aureocaulis' to me.

Yup, same one as previously posted last year. Changed.

[stevelau1911]

Since I don't really see any more threat of sub-zero temperatures, I have untarped my bamboos. It looks like nothing really looks too bad. I've found that tarping them to the ground seems to protect them almost completely except for leaves touching the tarp, and shrink wrap does almost nothing. Tying culms together will protect the leaves on the interior, and over-wintering covers appear to be the best at actually preventing leaf burn. Overall the winter protection did serve its purpose of ensuring more green leaves available by the spring.

Nothing under the greenhouse or tarp bed really had any damage, and leaf buds on my prominens have really started to elongate.

Parvifolia


Aureosulcata Spectabilis


Nigra


Dulcis


Propinqua Beijing


Atrovaginata



Makinoi: still tarped, but the culm left out almost completely leaf burned however leaf buds seem to be alive with no culm damage.


Decora

[johnw]

I saw the arcanas in the Annapolis Valley this morning. They are absolutely incinerated after a brief -24c. Friend said he had a close look at them and the buds look good - so far. Paulownias have blown about 75% of their flower buds as we cut a few open and only the tip ones are showing blue.

Steve - you have some nice hefty culms on the atrovaginata, dulcis and if I'm seeing right Beijing!

Picked up a small 1 gallon Alata at the college today, propagated from rhizomes late last summer and they made a bit of growth. They'll sell the rest at their first spring sale.

A balmy +5c here.

[canadianplant]

not bad steve! I hope you dont get the short, but decent drop in temps we got here. Tarping is the reason I can get away with bamboo here. If you do the same next year, try a thin layer of leaves on top of the bamboo, or an old blanket.

Pruning season is here in a week!

Nice little alata John. That going in the ground this year?

[johnw]

"Nice little alata John. That going in the ground this year?"

cp - it does look good but terribly small. They chopped the rhizomes to fit in these 3L pots. Personally I would have wrapped larger rhizomes around the pot. Nevertheless they have a lot of them for their spring sale so they get spread far and wide.

I brought them about 150 cuttings of some large Ilex opaca that have been growing in Halifax for 50 or more years. Exciting to get them spread about too. Need to get 2 of the females identified - any holly experts out there?

[Iowaboo]

Steve, you going to groom your Phyllostachys species as clumpers?

[stevelau1911]

I have already been cutting out the smallest culms that appear to be in the way, and just taking up root space. After a few more years, they shouldn't look like clumpers anymore as they are expanding a bit each year. By then, it should be OK for me to thin them out even more, making them walk through groves.

If you do the same next year, try a thin layer of leaves on top of the bamboo, or an old blanket.

One thing I did leave out is insulating the ground, but I really doubt that -16C is going to kill off all the rhizomes, or shoot buds, especially when there was snow on the ground during the hard freezes.


-24C would probably top kill most phyllostachys, but those arcana divisions looked big enough to make survival shoots in a few months. As far as overall grove size, I would have to rank them as 1. atrovaginata, 2. parvifolia 3. Bejing 4. Dulcis.

Once we get some sunshine, I would have to stake the thick groves like atrovaginata apart to get some more sunshine because it is probably absorbing energy at less than 50% of its full potential when most of the leaves are shaded.

[Tarzanus]

This year we have quite a lot of snow. This year we've only had a few sunny days.

weather.png (5.88 KiB) Viewed 7345 times

That's what we're having in the following days. The same we were getting last couple of weeks

[yard e]

I have some #3 and #5 pots with 1-3 culms a piece. The culms are about 5-6 years old, I dug them up in march 2012 and planted in these pots. they established very well, but with only whip shoots. These pots are in the ground ,but in a wide open space. They have suffered almost no leaf burn. On the other hand, I have a 2 year old grove started from #5 pots.These younger culms have suffered much more leaf burn and are in a protected area. The younger grove has filled in quickly, and the center is still green. I'm amazed how the older culms with no protection faired better. From what i've read, older culms are more cold hardy, this seems to be true. Has anybody had the same experiance?

[stevelau1911]

Here's the type of damage that I want to prevent at all costs. These are pictures of my bicolor from last March as it was untarped late February however wet conditions, and temperatures dropping only as low as 12F seemed to cause a considerable amount of leaf burn on the most vulnerable leaves which could have been protected if I left the tarp on for a bit longer.

Moso bicolor was limited to only 1 shoot as it had to spend so much energy replacing all those lost leaves when it could have made 2 or 3 shoots if no damage was inflicted. I think whenever a bamboo gets badly burned, so much energy is invested into replacing the leaves so that it reduces the size and number of shoots the following year. I guess it makes sense since energy flowing into the replacement of new leaves prevents energy from going into the rhizomes for new shoots.

I still have my greenhouse on, and even though the forecast doesn't show temperatures dropping super low, I intend to leave it on until I think the bamboos in there are just about to start shooting.

Here's the damage which was likely a result of cool wet & damp conditions with too much sun as opposed to regular winter damage. This could have been prevented if I just left it tarped for a couple more weeks.

[stevelau1911]

After the 17F record low which did happen to strike all of a sudden, I do happen to see some checkerboard damage on prominens, and shanghai III while the bamboos that have been in the ground longer don't seem to show any signs of damage.

One thing I've found is that this checkerboard damage doesn't seem to be related to actual winter damage where leaves defoliate. The shanghai III did have some leaves curled a bit as well on the late shoot while I'm seeing no damage at all on dulcis. It doesn't look like it should get down into the lower teens any time soon.

I have plenty of tarps to go around so I do intend to put them on once there is an extreme freeze in the forecast. All it takes is a tent stake to tie the culms to the ground, the tarp, and then 4 or more logs to keep the tarp from blowing away. People growing in zones 4/5 may need buckets of water too.

I also have about 1ft of tree leaves on all my groves. I've heard of people adding several feet of it, but I'm not sure if that will necessarily result in better growth the next year.

[stevelau1911]

Here's some actual damage that has resulted from the sudden drop to 17F.

Shanghai 3


Nigra


Dulcis