mike best wrote: Even through hurricane Fay high winds I thought, OK, I am going to have bamboo in my porch, but no.
The leaves take high wind very well but the new culms are not a wind tolerant at all, they are thin and you can crush them with your hand. It likes to put up allot of fragile new culms during hurricane season. During fay it broke 10 or so new culms, but because it is prolific at putting up new culms it has since put up about 12 new ones to make up for the loss.
Also the leaves also wilt during high heat but with no damaging effects.
Dredging up an old thread, but this is poignant to my situation and I am hoping that someone may chime in.
I have a Bambusa Emeiensis 'Flavidovirens' which I believe is the inverse of the 'Viridiflavus' in that the mature culms are yellow with green stripes, as opposed to green with yellow stripes. I transplanted my Emeiensis F about 6 months ago from a 20gal container; I live on a barrier island off the Gulf Coast of Florida in zone 10a. The bamboo had adapted beautifully, and had thrown off 4 or 5 new culms before Hurricane Irma hit in September. Other than minor leaf damage this bamboo fared well through the hurricane, but an unusually high "king tide" about 3 weeks back resulted in the rhizome/root ball of this particular bamboo being submerged in 100% salt water for 2-3 hours on three different occasions over a 2-day period. (For future reference, my experience here shows that Bambusa Ventricosa and B Chungii are able to withstand such an inundation of salt water.)
The existing older culms on the Emeiensis F do not look great now, 3 weeks later. What had given me hope is that the newer culms that have sprouted up since I transplanted it in the spring were/are still green...however I noted yesterday that the tallest of these had folded over approximately 1/2 way up the culm, and thus the top of the culm is now touching the ground. I found that the other new culms are easily pinch-able, and seem to have nothing in the center. Uh oh, I thought. When comparing against the young culms of my Timor/Lako black bamboo, those culms feel like solid wood and there is no "give" or flex at all when I pinch them.
This above post gives me hope that the young culms of this Emeiensis species are delicate to begin with. Is there thus a chance that my Emeiensis F will recover? By virtue of the fact that the culms are still green--even the older culms show green striping at the bases--may I safely assume that my bamboo has survived? Can anyone with experience chime in here? Thank you.