SaSa

[Iowaboo]

I've been looking into trying some in the sasa genus. I'm going to try sasa palmata next year. I was wondering if there are any other cold-hardy sasa that may run as fast as the palmata

[needmore]

Iowa, nice weather today huh? We were on the other side of the cold front and had one of the stormiest days in Indiana history. It was around 70F and 8-10 miles from my house there was 3 inch hail and 100 MPH winds. Tornados all over the place. Last check there was well over 3 inches of rain and more coming down. Tomorrow the high temp will be below 40F dipping into the 20's. But none of your snow yet.

I love Sasa's and have several species. The hardiest, in my experience, is Oshidensis. Tsuboiana is a great one, and also is hardier than the Palmata. All should spread more or less equally. I posted pics of a few species on the Gweb awhile back if you care to search for them. Senanensis is probably hardier than Palmata as is Nagimontana. Megallophylla, Veitchii, Veitchii Minor, Nipponica, all about as hardy as the Palmata.

Palmata HATES winter sun. Adam Turtle told me this a while back and then showed me evidence - a large patch that had half shaded by a building in winter and the rest in full sun. The full sun part was totally blond and the shaded nearly totally green. It had experienced a low of 6F that winter as I recall. Plant it with that in mind if possible - where it can be shaded in winter.

[Thuja]

I don't have oshidensis yet but I agree the tsuboiana is great so far, beautiful leaves. I have Sasas on the north side of the house in the hopes that they might stay green. I'll be watching & wondering, "how low can you go?"

[Iowaboo]

Thanks Brad and Mike. Sounds like I will be adding more than palmata to my list for next spring. I was planning on planting the sasas in woodland settings so winter sun should not be a big problem. I was even thinking about planting one or two species in the evergreen windbreak for an understory plant, but it would have to be wind tolerant.

Regarding the snow and cold temps. I'll check how my bamboo is doing after the 40 F temps return later this week. Feels like January out there, and my birthday isn't in january.

[needmore]

Our whole place is basically woodlands (you can see from the tinyurl in my signature line) as was the patch of Palmata that I saw bleached out, but once the leaves fall there is plenty of sunlight to cause problems. If you have the option, I'd put the Palmata on the north side of a structure if you want to give it the best shot at staying green all winter. Mine are planted among the trees and I've been mowing them down in February after they totally blond out.

The Oshidensis did not need culled last spring, nor did the Ind. Tess. As I recall they were the only 2 left standing among my many, many ground cover/shrub species. I think the Sasamorpha Borealis and Sasaella Bitchuensis may have held some leaves as well but I'm not certain about that.

[Thuja]

I put a pic of tsuboiana in the gallery...
<img src="http://www.bambooweb.info/images/bamboo ... Small).JPG" alt="SASA tsuboiana ">
Keep in mind tho that this is only November.

[Mike,Marietta,SC,z8a]

Sasa kurilensis 'shimofuri' has been a slow spreader for me, averaging less than a foot a year in spread. It gets much larger than the specs in the ABS Source List, mine is 16' high. It gets morning/afternoon shade with several hours of midday sun. It is surrounded by mostly deciduous trees, so it gets filtered morning/afternoon sun in the winter. I was curious about the origin of the 0F cold rating in the Source List, compared to -5F for palmata, considering that kurilensis grows much further north in colder climates than palmata. S. kurilensis has a unique adaptation for coping with heavy snow loads. Its culms typically exit the ground at an a shallow angle, then become vertical after leaving the ground. This curve in the culm acts as a hinge, allowing the culm to twist so it can lay flat on the ground without snapping the culm when exposed to a heavy snowfall.

[Thuja]

Mike- That's interesting about the "hinged" culm base on kurilensis. It seems there might be some other species with this charactertistic also. I wonder about that 0*F rating too. Maybe 0*F is the default value put down when the temp is not known? It's a critical threshold for many temperate bamboo. Ah well, personally I think many of the numbers are way off. I hope someday the table will be revamped to be more realistic.

[Roy]

Mike- That's interesting about the "hinged" culm base on kurilensis. It seems there might be some other species with this charactertistic also. I wonder about that 0*F rating too. Maybe 0*F is the default value put down when the temp is not known? It's a critical threshold for many temperate bamboo. Ah well, personally I think many of the numbers are way off. I hope someday the table will be revamped to be more realistic.

Thuja,

Even though I disagree with a lot of the min. temp(s) in the ABS Source List (and I am disagreeable on several other issues), setting the min. temp(s) for any plant is a very difficult thing to do since there so many variables. Variables such as wind speed, what was the temperatures in the preceding weeks before the freezing temps, how many hours was the temperature at the lowest level, and etc........

I don't know about temperate bamboos, but for tropical bamboos on the 2005 Source List, the min. temp(s) were raises quite a bit. In my opinion, some of the raising of the min. temp(s) moved the min. temps(s) to reflect a more accurate min. temp. but in others I think it was "over kill", if you will pardon the pun.

As far as a default min. temp. I belive that a "U" is used. At least that what it shows for the first bamboo listing in the Source List:

ACIDOSASA edulis 40.00 2.00 U 5

Roy in Tampa

[Thuja]

Agreed. Yes, I see the field is left blank if unknown. I can see the difficulty in listing a standard minimum temperature. I'll spin off a new thread on this topic since it is a reoccurring issue.