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This winter was especially harsh. I had recorded temps of 16 deg. for several hours one night. My angel mist and Bambusa emeiensis 'Viridiflavus' were out in the open with no cover and they took it extremely hard. Everything above the mulch is toast. Both were doing great up until this winter.

Now that temps have been in the 80's branch nodes have appeared from below the mulch. they are not new shoots just braches from below the mulch. My question is should I expect smaller shoots this year or should it continue where it left off last summer.

Trying to figure out if it is worth keeping them in there location or should I dig them out if it will take a few seasons to size back up.

Up until the past few years, we used to have our version of the 'killing freeze' once every 15 years or so.

However, 2 of the past 3 years have been exceptionally cold. We are still under 40 some nights here.

Normally, I would say leave it out, but now I am not so sure. I would cetainly keep it in the ground for this year and make the decision before the first frosts of winter.

Good luck!

nu2bamboo wrote:This winter was especially harsh. I had recorded temps of 16 deg. for several hours one night. My angel mist and Bambusa emeiensis 'Viridiflavus' were out in the open with no cover and they took it extremely hard. Everything above the mulch is toast. Both were doing great up until this winter.

Now that temps have been in the 80's branch nodes have appeared from below the mulch. they are not new shoots just braches from below the mulch. My question is should I expect smaller shoots this year or should it continue where it left off last summer.

Trying to figure out if it is worth keeping them in there location or should I dig them out if it will take a few seasons to size back up.

My thought would be to leave them where they are. (Unless you are going to dig them up and move them to a warmer location like Miami) Your rhizomes underground should still be alive. With your bamboo frozen back, then you can't expect to have them put up the same size culms you were getting last year, but I don't see how digging them out would help the cold hardiness unless you were going to plant an oak tree in their place.

My thought behind removing the two bamboo is that if it will take a substantial time to get back to the size it was before, I was going to put them in 45 gal. pots so that next winter I can bring them in if the forecast is lower than 24 deg. I like these too much to have them die back every year or two. I would rather take my chances of them in larger pots.

These two were my favorites and they were the hardest hit out of the 20 or so varities. Go figure!!!

When I say cold damaged I mean they were toast. I was very surprised to see some signs of life.

There is a forecast low of 38F tomorrow night. Do phyllostachys shoots need any protection from possible frost, or is it not even worth worrying about?

It unexpectedly dropped below freezing (-2°C) one night last week but no apparent damage to the shoots. Fried my aubergines and zucchinis though.