Large Bamboo Falling over

[Eastlandia]

Hey everyone,

Does anyone have experience re-planting, as in to lift up and right fallen bamboo clumps before? I lost a large 10 year old D. Minor 'Amoneus' two days ago, and am wondering if I could just put a rope on it, pull it back vertical, and then allow it to re-root.
The pulling up part is easy... but with more wind, the stabilization part will be difficult. There is a grove of oldhamii pretty close by, along with a B. textilis grove. Perhaps ropes to those... and a couple stakes?

Or are there methods that people have used which I do not know about!?

-eastlandia

[moriphen]

Treat it like a new mature transplant, by doing pretty much what you described. I can only add that I would water more often if you haven't had any recent rains.

[marcat]

Recent rains? he is in Florida and I do beleave Debbie will take care of that. Moriphen is right treat like a division planting. Most important thing is to make sure the root ball is not able to move about. Three T posts around it with a mess of lines to the culms down low should work tie it tight and check the lines often.
MarCat

[marcat]

Oh forgot a good drenching of Root Stim would help too.
MarCat

[Eastlandia]

So, Debbie did her work on the 'Amoneus', and the clump which consists of about 350 culms was put back in place yesterday. I climbed up on top and started cutting the culms at around 15-25 feet. Taking off most of the leaves. Then the hole was dug out slightly before putting a rope around the entire thing and pulling it back over with a tractor. It looks about the same... only it has a strange 90's haircut now.

I suppose this might be the only option for really large clumps of bamboo. cutting the culms prevents the bamboo from acting like a giant sail, and allows for the plant to have a good root/shoot ratio again. It dosent look amazing, but if the upper buds blow, and after this shooting season, itll be fine.

Staking it would work, but the T-posts needed would be astronomical... especially coming into hurricane season! If photos of my antics ever show up, Ill try to post them on this thread.

-eastlandia

[boonut]

When hurricane Dolly hit here, it knocked over one of my Parker Giants. I thinned out another Parker and it did ok. The one that blew over was after a drenching and very high winds. I used the front-end loader on my tractor to make it upright and then held it in place while I wrapped three 3/4" ropes around the clump and staked it up for about 6 months.

After the 6 month period, I took the ropes off and thinned it out. I then added quite a bit of sand and cow manure. You wouldn't know anything happened now. It is doing great. I didn't lose any culms, but the ropes made the clump look pretty ragged for a while. The high winds also made the clump look ragged.

Lots of new shoots this year. Both are doing great.

BTW... both clumps were planted in raised beds with lots of compost... so I am sure that also had something to do with why one blew over. I try to keep them thinned out now.