Z-5B Fort Collins winter coverup
Posted: Thu Mar 14, 2019 2:34 am
It's a snow day here today (the Bombcyclone blizard) so I'm home for the day, and I have some time to write.
Every year during the long Thanksgiving weekend, I cover my bamboo here in central Fort Collins (Colorado). We're zone 5B here. If I don't cover the bamboo for the coldest months then most or all of my culms are dead or half dead by spring. Without covering, my bamboo pretty much maxed out at around 4 to 6 feet. I have Decora, Nuda, Yellowcrook and.....hmmm....uhm, I forget the last one. Excaliber, or Zanzibar or Z something. hmm. Since I started covering I've gotten a little or sometimes a lot of upsize each year. I think my Decora is about maxed out now. It's had only a small upsize for the last 2 or 3 years.
Now and then I see a post here from other folks pushing the zone 5 envelope, so this year when I covered up, I tried to snap some pics on the i-phone (sorry about the poor quality), to share with others the methods of my madness on this big job. The job keeps getting bigger year by year, and I'm getting older, so this time I spread the work out over several days.
Pic 2390
Here is one of our golden retrievers Tucker Too, with my Decora. As you can see, it's getting pretty good sized for Z5B. The others are hiding behind the Decora in this shot. They're taller but since I'm kind of looking up hill here you can't see them. (Please forgive all the junk leaning up against the house, and the trebouchet. The other fall project was cleaning out and putting down pavers in the side yard where I normally hide junk and I haven't put the junk back yet)
So, covering the bamboo is a several step process.
Step 1.
Starting with... uhm.. drilling? No, installing? several of these big 30 inch steel anchors.
I got most of them years ago from Ace Hardware. Here's a link to them there now:
https://www.acehardware.com/departments ... hors/70064 If the ground is pretty dry I can't get them in at all, so I have to do a long thorough soak a couple days before. My son helps me, and we stick a 4 foot piece of rebar through the eye at the top of the anchor, and then we both lean down and rotate the rebar to bore the anchors in at strategic locations.
pic 1920
pic 2391
Step 2.
Then I run some ropes and straps around the bamboo and I use this long white pole with a hook on the end, and also climb up my extension ladder and push the ropes up by hand. I start tightening the ropes and straps to begin leaning the bamboo over. Then I push the ropes up some more and tighten some more. I often let the bamboo relax for a few hours (while I rest) and then tighten some more. If I leave it alone overnight, it seems that I can tighten some more in the morning. Usually I mostly just use the kind of tie down straps that have a little cam buckle, but this year, the force required was more than I could do with those, so I broke down and bought a couple of heavy duty ratchet type tie-downs like they use to secure loads on a flatbed truck.
Pic 2399
Here you see I finally have the Decora mostly strapped down, and I'm about to start on the bamboos on the other side of my little bamboo grove patio. So Decora bends down first and then the other bamboos have to be strapped and bent down to each side of the Decora. On the right here in this picture is my Yellowcrook. Oh yeah, the last one is Vivax. V is kinda close to Z, so I wasn't too far off, right? So, there's three on the far side of the patio, from left to right Nuda, Vivax, and Yellowcrook. They get split in the middle (more difficult than it sounds, and then strapped down to either side of the Decora.
Pic 2401
Step 3.
Now I have this big piece of canvas. It's 3 of the largest size painter's canvas from home depot sewn together to make one extra long piece. My son and I use these long white PVC poles with a hook duct taped to the end, to lift up the corners of the tarp, and gradually pull it up over the entire bamboo grove. This goes on first, because without having it in place, the next step, pulling this giant net I made out of cheap colored rope would be impossible. The net gets tangled and stuck on the bamboo, but with the tarp already in place, it's fairly easy to pull the net up over the top of the canvas.
Step 4.
Then I pull the canvas OUT from under the net, and use more tie down straps to pull the whole cargo net down, tightening the bamboo down even further. At this point the bamboo is strapped tight enough (and of course I have the net there for safety) that I can actually walk or crawl across the top of the bamboo. Next time I'll ask my son to get a pic of me standing up there.
I need the canvas to be over the top of the net. I'll explain about that later. So, now that the net is on and tightened down, my son and I once again use the poles etc. to put the canvas up again on top of the net this time.
Pic 2406 Here's Tucker Too again, now the canvas is on top of the net.
Pic 2411
Step 5. The plastic is next. This is a giant piece of green house plastic I ordered on sale from A.M. Leonard horticultural supply 6 or 7 years ago. (Ginigar brand clear poly) Not cheap, but it's holding up reasonably well (except the hole Tucker clawed through at one end a few weeks ago). I think it was about $ 160.00 6 mil. thick and 40 foot wide, and I think 80 or 85 feet long.
https://www.amleo.com/ginegar-suncover- ... p/VP-U46C/
With the canvas on top again, pulling the plastic on is pretty much the easiest step. It's heavy, but it's nice and wide, and it just slips right over the top of the canvas.
Pic 2418
Step 6. Then, I have a couple of cheap woven plastic tarps with brown on one side, and silver on the other. I have them tied together, and these go on top of the plastic with the silver side up, to reflect the sun, and these also get tied down, and I throw some bags of manure and some concrete things and pavers around the edges of the plastic to hold it down in heavy wind.
Step 7. (sorry no pic on this)
Here in Colorado the dry windy cold is a big issue for the bamboo. BUT a couple years experience covering the bamboo with just plastic, I learned the bigger and more difficult issue is those warm bright sunny days which happen about every third week throughout the winter. With just the plastic on there, the greenhouse effect will cook my bamboo, killing it even more effectively than the cold dry wind.
So, one of the tricky parts for me. I have to put up my extension ladder under one edge of the plastic, below the canvas, but above the net and bamboo. I climb up in there, and I drag some old rolls of chicken wire, and tomato cages, and wire rack shelving and anything else I have laying around, that I can stick up there to create a space between the bamboo and the canvas so that air can easily rise up to the peak of the structure. I think if the bamboo weren't strapped down so tight together, the air could circulate through the bamboo, but it's strapped so tight I can walk or crawl on top of it, so it's too tight for circulation.
Then, at the very top of the structure, I have this blower with a thermostat, connected to an extra long 4 inch dryer tube.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005K ... UTF8&psc=1
I ordered the thermostat from a greenhouse supply place. It's adjustable, and I have it set so that as soon as the temp gets above about 40F the fan comes on and starts blowing the hot air pretty fast down the tube which vents out from under the plastic. I have a remote thermometer also near the top, which I can read from in the house. This year I think the highest the temp has been 80F and that was only once or twice. Before I started using the blower, even with all those layers and the reflective silver on top, it would hit 100 several times, and a lot of the upper portion of the bamboo would be toast.
I also have several freeze prevention pipe heater cords which I stretch out on the patio below the bamboo. These I have connected to a different thermostat, which is set to turn on when the temperature gets below 10F. I think those have only turned on a couple of times within several years. It gets cold here in Fort Collins (10 below might be expected every other year or so. But in the bamboo with a lot of exposed ground, and lots of layers, my thermometer near the top of the bamboo usually stays 10 to 15 degrees warmer than the outdoors on cold nights. So, for these cold hardy bamboos I'm not sure I need the extra protection of the heater cords, but...... of all the work I do to prepare for winter, sticking those things in are pretty much the easiest part, so it's cheap insurance. I have to run the extension cord all winter anyway for the cooling blower.
So, the layers are first the ropes and straps to hold the bamboo down close enough to the ground so I can get my covers over the bamboo and fit it under my 40 foot wide plastic. Then the hand made rope cargo net, then the rolls of chicken wire and tomato cages (for circulation) and the blower, duct, and thermostat, next is the layer of canvas which gives a bit of insulation and also helps wick and keep condensed water from dripping down through the bamboo and also makes it easier to slide the plastic over. Next is the plastic and on top of that is the reflective tarp to help keep things cool. Of the tasks involved, the hardest is strapping the bamboo down close to the ground. The entire job takes probably 20 hours of work and not easy work. Sooner or later I'll be too old to do this each year, but for now it's worth it to have my bamboo grove. Yeah, I suppose that's a little bit nuts.
It's march 13th today so another week or two, depending on the long range weather report, and I'll pull off everything but the rope net, and loosen up the straps a bit. I'll keep it held together with the net etc. until the risk of heavy snow is over. The bamboo is plenty strong enough to hold up deep heavy snow if it's strapped together, but if it's just loose, then it all bends outward from the middle, and I lose a lot of culms to the weight of the snow. So, I usually wait to pull off the net until around the middle of May.
Every year during the long Thanksgiving weekend, I cover my bamboo here in central Fort Collins (Colorado). We're zone 5B here. If I don't cover the bamboo for the coldest months then most or all of my culms are dead or half dead by spring. Without covering, my bamboo pretty much maxed out at around 4 to 6 feet. I have Decora, Nuda, Yellowcrook and.....hmmm....uhm, I forget the last one. Excaliber, or Zanzibar or Z something. hmm. Since I started covering I've gotten a little or sometimes a lot of upsize each year. I think my Decora is about maxed out now. It's had only a small upsize for the last 2 or 3 years.
Now and then I see a post here from other folks pushing the zone 5 envelope, so this year when I covered up, I tried to snap some pics on the i-phone (sorry about the poor quality), to share with others the methods of my madness on this big job. The job keeps getting bigger year by year, and I'm getting older, so this time I spread the work out over several days.
Pic 2390
Here is one of our golden retrievers Tucker Too, with my Decora. As you can see, it's getting pretty good sized for Z5B. The others are hiding behind the Decora in this shot. They're taller but since I'm kind of looking up hill here you can't see them. (Please forgive all the junk leaning up against the house, and the trebouchet. The other fall project was cleaning out and putting down pavers in the side yard where I normally hide junk and I haven't put the junk back yet)
So, covering the bamboo is a several step process.
Step 1.
Starting with... uhm.. drilling? No, installing? several of these big 30 inch steel anchors.
I got most of them years ago from Ace Hardware. Here's a link to them there now:
https://www.acehardware.com/departments ... hors/70064 If the ground is pretty dry I can't get them in at all, so I have to do a long thorough soak a couple days before. My son helps me, and we stick a 4 foot piece of rebar through the eye at the top of the anchor, and then we both lean down and rotate the rebar to bore the anchors in at strategic locations.
pic 1920
pic 2391
Step 2.
Then I run some ropes and straps around the bamboo and I use this long white pole with a hook on the end, and also climb up my extension ladder and push the ropes up by hand. I start tightening the ropes and straps to begin leaning the bamboo over. Then I push the ropes up some more and tighten some more. I often let the bamboo relax for a few hours (while I rest) and then tighten some more. If I leave it alone overnight, it seems that I can tighten some more in the morning. Usually I mostly just use the kind of tie down straps that have a little cam buckle, but this year, the force required was more than I could do with those, so I broke down and bought a couple of heavy duty ratchet type tie-downs like they use to secure loads on a flatbed truck.
Pic 2399
Here you see I finally have the Decora mostly strapped down, and I'm about to start on the bamboos on the other side of my little bamboo grove patio. So Decora bends down first and then the other bamboos have to be strapped and bent down to each side of the Decora. On the right here in this picture is my Yellowcrook. Oh yeah, the last one is Vivax. V is kinda close to Z, so I wasn't too far off, right? So, there's three on the far side of the patio, from left to right Nuda, Vivax, and Yellowcrook. They get split in the middle (more difficult than it sounds, and then strapped down to either side of the Decora.
Pic 2401
Step 3.
Now I have this big piece of canvas. It's 3 of the largest size painter's canvas from home depot sewn together to make one extra long piece. My son and I use these long white PVC poles with a hook duct taped to the end, to lift up the corners of the tarp, and gradually pull it up over the entire bamboo grove. This goes on first, because without having it in place, the next step, pulling this giant net I made out of cheap colored rope would be impossible. The net gets tangled and stuck on the bamboo, but with the tarp already in place, it's fairly easy to pull the net up over the top of the canvas.
Step 4.
Then I pull the canvas OUT from under the net, and use more tie down straps to pull the whole cargo net down, tightening the bamboo down even further. At this point the bamboo is strapped tight enough (and of course I have the net there for safety) that I can actually walk or crawl across the top of the bamboo. Next time I'll ask my son to get a pic of me standing up there.
I need the canvas to be over the top of the net. I'll explain about that later. So, now that the net is on and tightened down, my son and I once again use the poles etc. to put the canvas up again on top of the net this time.
Pic 2406 Here's Tucker Too again, now the canvas is on top of the net.
Pic 2411
Step 5. The plastic is next. This is a giant piece of green house plastic I ordered on sale from A.M. Leonard horticultural supply 6 or 7 years ago. (Ginigar brand clear poly) Not cheap, but it's holding up reasonably well (except the hole Tucker clawed through at one end a few weeks ago). I think it was about $ 160.00 6 mil. thick and 40 foot wide, and I think 80 or 85 feet long.
https://www.amleo.com/ginegar-suncover- ... p/VP-U46C/
With the canvas on top again, pulling the plastic on is pretty much the easiest step. It's heavy, but it's nice and wide, and it just slips right over the top of the canvas.
Pic 2418
Step 6. Then, I have a couple of cheap woven plastic tarps with brown on one side, and silver on the other. I have them tied together, and these go on top of the plastic with the silver side up, to reflect the sun, and these also get tied down, and I throw some bags of manure and some concrete things and pavers around the edges of the plastic to hold it down in heavy wind.
Step 7. (sorry no pic on this)
Here in Colorado the dry windy cold is a big issue for the bamboo. BUT a couple years experience covering the bamboo with just plastic, I learned the bigger and more difficult issue is those warm bright sunny days which happen about every third week throughout the winter. With just the plastic on there, the greenhouse effect will cook my bamboo, killing it even more effectively than the cold dry wind.
So, one of the tricky parts for me. I have to put up my extension ladder under one edge of the plastic, below the canvas, but above the net and bamboo. I climb up in there, and I drag some old rolls of chicken wire, and tomato cages, and wire rack shelving and anything else I have laying around, that I can stick up there to create a space between the bamboo and the canvas so that air can easily rise up to the peak of the structure. I think if the bamboo weren't strapped down so tight together, the air could circulate through the bamboo, but it's strapped so tight I can walk or crawl on top of it, so it's too tight for circulation.
Then, at the very top of the structure, I have this blower with a thermostat, connected to an extra long 4 inch dryer tube.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005K ... UTF8&psc=1
I ordered the thermostat from a greenhouse supply place. It's adjustable, and I have it set so that as soon as the temp gets above about 40F the fan comes on and starts blowing the hot air pretty fast down the tube which vents out from under the plastic. I have a remote thermometer also near the top, which I can read from in the house. This year I think the highest the temp has been 80F and that was only once or twice. Before I started using the blower, even with all those layers and the reflective silver on top, it would hit 100 several times, and a lot of the upper portion of the bamboo would be toast.
I also have several freeze prevention pipe heater cords which I stretch out on the patio below the bamboo. These I have connected to a different thermostat, which is set to turn on when the temperature gets below 10F. I think those have only turned on a couple of times within several years. It gets cold here in Fort Collins (10 below might be expected every other year or so. But in the bamboo with a lot of exposed ground, and lots of layers, my thermometer near the top of the bamboo usually stays 10 to 15 degrees warmer than the outdoors on cold nights. So, for these cold hardy bamboos I'm not sure I need the extra protection of the heater cords, but...... of all the work I do to prepare for winter, sticking those things in are pretty much the easiest part, so it's cheap insurance. I have to run the extension cord all winter anyway for the cooling blower.
So, the layers are first the ropes and straps to hold the bamboo down close enough to the ground so I can get my covers over the bamboo and fit it under my 40 foot wide plastic. Then the hand made rope cargo net, then the rolls of chicken wire and tomato cages (for circulation) and the blower, duct, and thermostat, next is the layer of canvas which gives a bit of insulation and also helps wick and keep condensed water from dripping down through the bamboo and also makes it easier to slide the plastic over. Next is the plastic and on top of that is the reflective tarp to help keep things cool. Of the tasks involved, the hardest is strapping the bamboo down close to the ground. The entire job takes probably 20 hours of work and not easy work. Sooner or later I'll be too old to do this each year, but for now it's worth it to have my bamboo grove. Yeah, I suppose that's a little bit nuts.
It's march 13th today so another week or two, depending on the long range weather report, and I'll pull off everything but the rope net, and loosen up the straps a bit. I'll keep it held together with the net etc. until the risk of heavy snow is over. The bamboo is plenty strong enough to hold up deep heavy snow if it's strapped together, but if it's just loose, then it all bends outward from the middle, and I lose a lot of culms to the weight of the snow. So, I usually wait to pull off the net until around the middle of May.