Boo shoots for 2013

[JWH]

Johnw,

Those are impressive Robusta 'campbell' culms! Do you know how old it is? I'd love to see a shot of the whole plant.

[johnw]

john, what about parvifolia and beijing? I thought they did amazing last year for you. have not shot this year? my parvi has already done with vertical growth and is starting to branch.

Yes those ones blew my mind last year but we did push them hard. We took them out of dark storage one foggy morning and as i got to work the sun came out and fried last year's leaves off them. P. parvi & Beijing have put up about a half dozen shoots each but no branching yet - still headed skyward. They're in 15 gallon pots along the very narrow path to the potting shed so we've tied the new canes up & guided them into the centre of the old culms so we wouldn't snap new ones off. Once they harden and are untied I should be able to get pix.

Beijing leafed out rather quickly with a few shots of fertilizer but parvi was very slow and the leaves looked chlorotic. Brad I think mentioned Ironite so I gave them a dash of that and they quickly greened up and are leafing well now. A bit of heat - maybe 19c today - would certainly speed things up.

I don't know about JWH who seems to share our similar cool climate but we couldn't even dream about putting a cucumber plant out until the 3rd or 4th week of June, cool and damp knocks them flat.

[johnw]

Johnw,

Those are impressive Robusta 'campbell' culms! Do you know how old it is? I'd love to see a shot of the whole plant.

JWH - My Campbell is in my southern NS garden and I haven't taken a full pic this spring. Here's one from last July. I lied, it put up one new cane last year which was a big dissapointment - now forgiven with this year's abundance.

My records say received Spring of 2003 from Canada's Bamboo World as simply F. robusta 1 gallon, badly infested with bamboo mites, washed down by hand 3 times, sprayed every 3-4 days for a month with alternating chems, all suspicious leaves burnt on the BBQ, clean by late June and planted south summer 2003. Clean and mite-free Spring 2004. Identified by Adam at Bamboo Garden as Campbell July 2012.

It was quite tender the first couple of years down there in Z7b/8a. Extremely windy too.

Will get a full pic next time down.

Off to repot some C. culeou Aisan II seedlings.

Do you find Scabrida cranky? It has re-leafed but all new shoots are no bigger than last year's. Planted in September which was risky.

[foxd]

Today I measured the Pseudosasa japonica, it has reached 100 inches tall and still has not started to put out branches!

I was also cleaning out the dead culms from the Bambusa ventricosa. One of the culms last year was 3/4 of an inch in diameter.

I was looking at the Pseudisasa amabilis this morning and just realized how much it looks like a scaled up Arundinaria gigantea. Short branches and the way they branch at the nodes. I should take pictures to show what I mean. I'm wondering just how closely related the two species are.

[stevelau1911]

I wished I had that kind of luck with fargesia robusta. I have some potted divisions of it, but it is definitely not that vigorous, and I doubt it can get to 16ft around here.

One bamboo that may surpass 16ft for me this year is phyllostachys atrovaginata which currently has shoots rising up past 12ft, internodes up to 1ft in length and they are generally around the 1 inch mark in diameter, some just a bit more.

At about the 8-10ft height, the diameter of new shoots seems to far surpass that of the old culms which were generally in the 10-13.5ft range so I could be in for a nice gain in height maybe because this year, atrovaginata is shooting exceptionally late.



Are these still considered to be shoots on bicolor, or should we call them culms?

[pokenei]

John,

What you did last year to Parvi was impressive. I want to compare your result with mine as we both acquired them Steve last Spring. The difference being that you started with a good set of rhizomes whereas mine started from a whip culm division. Since the rhizomes you got were fully charged and with the magic ingredient you used, you had impressive new growths last year, whereas mine only put up one or two tiny culms and the existing whip culm did not produced anymore leaves. One other difference is that I planted mine in the ground as soon as I got them. Between the two whip culms I got, there're about half dozen good shoots nearly 1/4" in diameter and a few over 4 feet long. They're mostly bent over - too heavy to support their own weight.

And FYI, mine was also leafless and nearly top killed after this brutal Winter. I only protected it with shrink/bubble wraps which didn't work at all. In fact, it grew mold all over. The original whip culms did not re-leaf and are 101% dead.

Steve,
Looking at that Moso bi-color, I can just imagine the kind of surprise my neighbors will have if that grew from my backyard. i.e. For the first two years, the bamboo was low and bushy, not even visible over the fence, then...what the beast?

[stevelau1911]

I'm not sure if bicolor would handle zone 5, but it can without a doubt withstand 14.2F with no leaf damage so it's hardier than the tropicals that I have messed with. It might be possible, but a simple tarp may not be enough up there, but it's possible to find out how to grow it with a weather station and sensors.

I also found out this year that column tarping where I simply tie culms together and wrap them up does just about nothing in winter protection, but luckily a winter low of 3F wasn't bad enough to do much leaf damage anyways. I also won't have a way to protect my atrovaginata even if I could if it gets up over 17ft this year so if it gets some leaf burn, I really don't care.

[JWH]

I don't know about JWH who seems to share our similar cool climate but we couldn't even dream about putting a cucumber plant out until the 3rd or 4th week of June, cool and damp knocks them flat.

I can usually plant cucumbers/squash/pumpkins out mid-late may. In a "normal" year it starts drying out in may. Summers here are pretty dry we get about 4 inches/10cm of rain from June to mid September.

I planted these squash and pumpkins in the second week of may, and the weather has gone a bit haywire ever since. We'll get a week of cloudy 60f/16c days, then a few 75f/24c sunny days. Then another week of cool and cloudy....not much growth in a whole month!

Do you find Scabrida cranky? It has re-leafed but all new shoots are no bigger than last year's. Planted in September which was risky.

Scabrida has done amazing here so far. Mine was planted in early spring 2012 from a 2 gallon size pot. It had 3 older culms and about 6 new shoots when I planted it, then it had a taller crop of fall shoots. This spring it had 30+ new culms in the 5-7ft range. It's currently leafing out and looking amazing with the dry orange culm sheaths, blue culms and dark green leaves.





-Edit-
Really nice Robusta 'campbell' there Johnw thanks for the full size pic!
My F. Robusta 'campbell' was planted the same time as scabrida. It hasn't grown as vigorously as scabrida or rufa yet. It put up 8 new culms this spring the tallest is about 8ft

[needmore]

I'm not sure if bicolor would handle zone 5, but it can without a doubt withstand 14.2F with no leaf damage so it's hardier than the tropicals that I have messed with. It might be possible, but a simple tarp may not be enough up there, but it's possible to find out how to grow it with a weather station and sensors.

I also found out this year that column tarping where I simply tie culms together and wrap them up does just about nothing in winter protection, but luckily a winter low of 3F wasn't bad enough to do much leaf damage anyways. I also won't have a way to protect my atrovaginata even if I could if it gets up over 17ft this year so if it gets some leaf burn, I really don't care.

Wasn't that 14.2F in an enclosed greenhouse and not wind exposed?

[stevelau1911]

Yep.

I think it can probably take temperatures quite a bit lower than that, but I've never tested it. It just doesn't get nearly as cold as it does outdoors with 4 barrels filled with water, and a nice greenhouse tarp on top of it. It has better soil than the rest of the bamboos in my garden so that may be a factor in making it hardier. It's not producing a lot of culms so far so I don't want to test it out to the elements yet.

JWH, isn't mid to late May a bit late in planting pumpkins? I've found that they tend to produce bigger fruit if they are started much earlier as they get a chance to really spread out their vines. I planted them in mid May too, but I simply ran out of space under my 400 watt metal halide which I start many seedlings with.

One thing I've found out about watermelons is that they can be killed off by flooding for several days so I've lost about half my plants from that.

[JWH]

JWH, isn't mid to late May a bit late in planting pumpkins? I've found that they tend to produce bigger fruit if they are started much earlier as they get a chance to really spread out their vines. I planted them in mid May too, but I simply ran out of space under my 400 watt metal halide which I start many seedlings with.

Thats about when the weather starts getting nice here. When the nights stop dipping into the 30's, also mid-may is when They are planted outdoors, they have been sprouted and grown for a few weeks before that in the greenhouse.

[needmore]

Yep.

I think it can probably take temperatures quite a bit lower than that, but I've never tested it. It just doesn't get nearly as cold as it does outdoors with 4 barrels filled with water, and a nice greenhouse tarp on top of it. It has better soil than the rest of the bamboos in my garden so that may be a factor in making it hardier. It's not producing a lot of culms so far so I don't want to test it out to the elements yet.

I'm thinking it is good to clarify the statement you made as a fact that it is hardy to 14.2F but you had it in a greenhouse then so people might interpret that as outdoor hardy to 14.2F and you don't know as you have not let it experience winter unprotected, it may have been windburned earlier or later in the year and until you leave it exposed you can't really make temperature claims on it can you?

[stevelau1911]

I really doubt the mid teens would be a threat to any temperate running bamboo unless there were winds gusting up to 40+mph, but I really haven't had it low enough to get its hardiness tested. I think bamboo gardens said that bicolor could withstand something like 7F without damage, but I'm not going to test it out until there are plenty of culms.

Anyways, the atrovaginata is really rising in height fast. The tallest shoots were only about 7ft or so 1 week ago, but now they are getting close to the 14ft mark, surpassing the tallest from last year, and there was nearly a 2ft increase from yesterday on the biggest shoots so I think there's a few more feet left of growth in them. They are currently about the height of the lowest powerline. I hope they at least reach the height of the 2nd powerline. The dulcis shoot is done growing at a bit over 15ft so it's almost definite that atrovaginata will be the tallest bamboo this year if they keep growing as expected.


As shown in this picture, they are far greater in diameter at the 10ft mark than the older culms.



The prominens is also doing pretty good itself as it's 3/4 inch culm is only a few inches away from 10ft, but it is putting a lot of energy into only 1 shoot so it makes sense for it to get very tall.


The prominens divisions do look like they will take. A few of them failed due to my own negligence as I didn't realize that the soil was way too wet, causing the weaker ones to rot.


Some of the moso bicolor rhizomes are leafing out now while some of them are barely getting started.

[johnw]

Smashing Scabrida there JWH. I hope we can keep ours going.

Seems after the 2nd or 3rd year the Campbell took off like a shot so no doubt with your climate it could snap into gear faster. Funny you says you get 4" of rain to Sept, we get that every month here and a lot more per month in the autumn - about 62" total for the year.

I was reading Bell's book a couple of nights ago and he states a hardiness rating of +5F for Campbell and Rufa given their Chinese altitudes. So far I'd have to agree with that.

You & Steve are a month or more ahead of us with cukes, melons (a challenge on the coast around here) and pumpkin planting. But di remember the Atlantic Giant Pumpkin strain was developed right here in the Annapolis Valley, they get warmer June-Sept. than we go on the coast.

[rcb]

Hey.. how did that get there? I swear I just checked for those a couple days ago...

It's not very big, but the label is dated May 2012. My thought is that's when they divided it, so this is likely its first shoot since then.

This is the Atrovaginata I just got a month or so ago, BTW.