Over-wintering bamboo/ other plants

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Rufledt
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Re: Over-wintering bamboo/ other plants

Post by Rufledt »

I never thought of the idea to use pool thermal covers before, that's brilliant! The sun would warm the plants more that way. one word of warning, my parents always keep their thermal cover either on the pool or out of the sun because the air bubbles can heat up and burst if they don't have something to transfer the heat into. I'm not sure that will be a problem during the winter but it might be if we get a random really warm streak sometime.
stevelau1911
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Re: Over-wintering bamboo/ other plants

Post by stevelau1911 »

I prefer anything that is thick, and capable of trapping heat, especially the stuff that is not prone to getting holes. Some pool covers may be prone to getting holes so I generally use those for the more hardy plants, but newer ones usually last pretty well. It's not that tough to get them free or under $30 off craigslist. There's also a lot of other materials that people tend to through away, even tarps that can be find by the curbs.

I think having the roasting partially decomposted leaf/wood mulch under some of my bamboos such as the atro, dulcis, nigra, prominens, makinoi, and shanghai III should generate enough heat throughout the winter to make a difference under the tarps. I hope it protects the largest banana too so it can get enormous next year. If this experiment is successful, we can have another polar vortex, and the tarps should be successful. There is another local bamboo grower who used it who told me about it, and got away with almost no leaf burn even through last winter so I hope it can be replicated here.
Rufledt
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Re: Over-wintering bamboo/ other plants

Post by Rufledt »

I don't have a ton of decomposing leaf mulch, but I am putting a bunch of gallon jugs full of water under the tarp. I just got a whole bunch of distilled water for use in my indoor irrigation thing and i'm refilling the jugs with tap water for under the tarp. They won't generate heat like the decomposing stuff but I hope there will be enough of a heat sink effect. Last winter I got no damage at all to the plants under the tarp despite the cold. Then again I only had aureasulcata and parvifolia under there, nothing like nigra. Now I have a bunch of different plants under there including a japonica. I'm curious to see how well that survives.
stevelau1911
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Re: Over-wintering bamboo/ other plants

Post by stevelau1911 »

As expected, it doesn't look like the mid teens can deal any damage on bamboo especially when the soil is not frozen at all.

One thing I noticed pretty quickly is how quickly the snow seems to melt underneath my ph atrovaginata directly under where I added a few hundred lbs of decomposing leaf mulch. I hope the decomposition process continues through the whole winter. This is one of my hardier bamboos and it's pretty big so I'm giving it no protection other than the protection on the root zone.
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All the tarps seem to have some snow stuck to them. Tarping was completely ineffective last year with the extreme cold which froze the soil deep, but they should work this year especially since I added the slow burning partially decomposed leaf mulch which will hopefully keep the root zones unfrozen through this winter.
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I added a bit more tarp onto the parvifolia to hopefully protect it so it can manage to produce bigger shoots than I've ever seen in my garden.
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One mystery with a pear tree close to the stream is that the top leaves seem to be hanging on even though they should have changed colors and dropped by now. I guess the mulch underneath must be making it think it's still not fall yet eh.
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JWH
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Re: Over-wintering bamboo/ other plants

Post by JWH »

Steve-

How much snow are you getting there? The pictures of all the snow in Buffalo are crazy!
stevelau1911
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Re: Over-wintering bamboo/ other plants

Post by stevelau1911 »

We are only getting 2-3 inches of snow per night, but it seems to be melting throughout each day so it's nowhere close to what they are getting 20-80 miles WSW of here. We definitely escaped this one.

We have around 4 inches of snow right now after last night, but one thing I've noticed is that no snow is able to stick around underneath the atrovaginata. I guess the heat from decomposition will keep snow off completely whenever there is not much snow. We could still get up to half a foot with a couple days left remaining of below freezing temperatures.
Rufledt
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Re: Over-wintering bamboo/ other plants

Post by Rufledt »

we hardly got anything near Binghamton. It was in the 30's and rain/slush was falling from the sky. The last few days the soil has been frozen solid here. The plants under the tarp are fine, though. The water jugs didn't freeze at all either.
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Re: Over-wintering bamboo/ other plants

Post by stevelau1911 »

I went ahead and cleaned up the dead culms on the bamboos, then tarped the ones that can be reasonably tarped.

Here's the bicolor looking nice and leafy now, although culms are small.
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The one on the right side has 1 2ft long rhizome growing outwards, while this one on the left side has several rhizomes growing the other direction which hopefully means that new shoots that appear next year will emerge apart from eachother.
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I wrapped each culm up with frost cover, put 3 five gallon buckets under there, lots of potted boos, and double tarped this one for good measure.
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The propinqua partially went to flower. This one is still small enough to tarp, but seeing that it's flowering, I don't think it's worth the effort, as it will likely keep flowering and expending the rest of it's energy. I couldn't find any viable seeds though.
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Atrovaginata actually didn't get much culm damage regardless of a lot of leaf burn last winter, and it is looking solid. It's well too big to tarp.
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Parvifolia is way too big to protect, and although some if it's extremities have had top kill in the past, it has generally handled the winters here easily so I'm hoping it continues to get up in size in the coming years. It upsizes slowly, but on warm winters, it does gain size quite consistently.
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Nigra was pretty easy to tarp.
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Dulcis is small too so I put the clear tarp on it.
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Shanghai III
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Makinoi
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The culms I cut out can be used for garden trellises, stakes and fencing. I was able to cut out a lot less than I expected.
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Cooper12
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Re: Over-wintering bamboo/ other plants

Post by Cooper12 »

nice job Steve!
you where busy
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steve-in-kville
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Re: Over-wintering bamboo/ other plants

Post by steve-in-kville »

One of our "lasagna" garden beds. There's actually a few small Rufa buried in there! That 20" high pile of leaves and straw will be condensed to about 6" come spring.

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Regards,

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wolfedg
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Re: I've got you covered.

Post by wolfedg »

Well this winter is certainly an unusual one so far. We had nice 70 degree days most days just a couple weeks ago, but now they are talking about lows in the teens in just a couple days. So I have decided not to take my chances this year.

My new rufa decided to go for a wade in the pool.
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The Vivax decides to camp out.
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I got a bit lazy on the Atro but I think it should be ok.
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stevelau1911
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Re: Over-wintering bamboo/ other plants

Post by stevelau1911 »

It's nice that your culms can still bend all the way down to the ground because even with any bit of snow, or even ice over the tarp, and it can get way below 0F, but the bamboos will still be insulated. That's virtually 100% protection for zone 6 and warmer. Only my bicolor, and fargesias have that advantage. With a snow barrier, I believe it can get to -20F, and tarped bamboos can still stay evergreen.

When a tarped over bamboo is still 3ft high, then based on what I've in the past, that air gap only gives my bamboos more of a wind/sun block to prevent dessication since the snow needs to be 1ft or higher to completely smother the tarp, but if it's a very snowy year as forecasted, that might happen. I still believe that a tarp in this situation would provide at least a good 5F of extra protection which is often enough when every temperature counts especially if wind chill can be negated completely.

If it is snowy, I may get lots of culm breakage on the untarped atrovaginata, and I'm just hoping there aren't any ridiculously cold nights like the -12F from last winter because I do want to see the parvifolia reach new heights, now that I don't really have a way of protecting it unless I have a greenhouse built around it.

Here's the farmer's almanac prediction. It has been above average temperatures for the last 7 months so the great lakes are warmer than normal so hopefully that means that winter won't get that bad.
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dependable
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Re: Over-wintering bamboo/ other plants

Post by dependable »

Ah, warmer than average. But it only takes one cold night, as we learned last year. Nothing much I can do in the way of preparation, save for a few in pots, as there is too much and too tall to cover, which is not so bad.
wolfedg
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Re: Over-wintering bamboo/ other plants

Post by wolfedg »

stevelau1911 wrote:It's nice that your culms can still bend all the way down to the ground because even with any bit of snow, or even ice over the tarp, and it can get way below 0F, but the bamboos will still be insulated. That's virtually 100% protection for zone 6 and warmer. Only my bicolor, and fargesias have that advantage. With a snow barrier, I believe it can get to -20F, and tarped bamboos can still stay evergreen.
The trouble here is we dont get a lot of snow. And unlike just a few hundred miles north where I used to live, it also doesnt stay cold. When it snows it oly stays on the ground a day or two usually. We can have a week in January in the 50s and 60s and then suddenly drop to 0. This is why I wonder about tarping. Will my plants bake if I leave them tarped and its gets warm for a while?

Nevertheless, my wager that my latitude + full sun > exposed location wind damage did pay off this year. Despite the fact that the vivax had struggled for much of the summer from transplant shock and then defoliated more than 90% after its first winter and lost both of its main culms I still saw a 5x increase in size this past spring with two 1/2in x 4-6ft culms coming up. Really looking forward to next spring :). There is already a 1/2 in rhizome that has partially surfaced about 5 feet from the plant, who knows what else is going on down there.
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Alan_L
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Re: Over-wintering bamboo/ other plants

Post by Alan_L »

Steve: How tall is your makinoi? Looks great! I'm also surprised that you haven't given up on the bicolor yet, as it's not doing much compared to the others.
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