How to make bamboo stand tall - fighting 1 cm of wet snow

Other things that involve bamboo

Moderator: needmore

Post Reply
Tarzanus
Posts: 1457
Joined: Sun Jan 16, 2011 12:05 am
Location info: 0
Location: Ljubljana, Slovenia

How to make bamboo stand tall - fighting 1 cm of wet snow

Post by Tarzanus »

How do you do it?
We've had 1 cm of wet snow and even the thickest culms met the ground. All the branches are trimmed at around 2m but they are still heavy enough to fall down as soon as they see snow. Heck, they do that before the snow even starts :)
Alan_L
Posts: 2966
Joined: Sat Jan 03, 2009 4:13 pm
Location info: 81
Location: St. Louis area

Re: How to make bamboo stand tall - fighting 1 cm of wet sno

Post by Alan_L »

I say don't try to fight it. I built a support for my one grove that's next to the driveway, and if the snow is heavy enough you may get broken culms -- they break where they are touching the support. Supporting them up high is the only good solution, and that's not easy.

Are those photos of Brad's driveway completely blocked by iced, bent culms still on here somewhere? Probably...
Tarzanus
Posts: 1457
Joined: Sun Jan 16, 2011 12:05 am
Location info: 0
Location: Ljubljana, Slovenia

Re: How to make bamboo stand tall - fighting 1 cm of wet sno

Post by Tarzanus »

I have had best results when I tied individual culms together one year so they offered support to each other, but we didn't have that much snow that year. Well we don't have it this year neither, but like I said, lousy 1 centimeter of wet snow was enough for them to become bent to the ground. It's also almost impossible to shake off that sticky half-melted snow.

Support doesn't work. If it is supportive enough, culms can break, like you said, if not, everything breaks and you just end up with even messier mess.

I will do just as you said. Last two years I just wait for the snow to stop falling and I shake as much snow off. That way I can walk into the garden and usually wind helps getting the remaining snow off the leaves. That job can be harder than root pruning though.
Post Reply