Hey all,

Wondering if anyone has suggestions for transplanting bamboo is cold temperate climates. I am in the process of obtaining many small, rare, unavailable (in Canada at least) bamboo. I therefore need to clear out my bamboo test bed. The bed is 3 seasons old, is easily protected to allow for quick establishment of small bamboo (and has a 100% record so far!), but the space is now needed for new acquisitions. So, my question is, how do I transplant the plants that are currently in the bed with minimum set-back, and what is the best time to do so. Do i wait until they have finished shooting this coming spring, or do I do it very early in the spring?

The plants currently in the bed are:
Phyllostachys aureosulcata 'spectibilis' (I have 3 clumps of this planted, so it's the least of my worries)
Phy. rubromarginata
Phy. vivax 'Huangwhatever'
Fargesia nitida

Edit: These were all planted as 1 gallon plants, but have 2 years of establishment since planting. All have performed very well with little to no set back (aka Good protection!)

Paul -- that's a tough one. I've never pulled an entire plant out while wanting to preserve it. I'd think that waiting until AFTER it was done shooting, all leafed out and the culms were hardened may leave you needing to remove a bunch of leaves. So maybe doing it before shooting is best overall?

I'd wait for Needmore or somebody with more experience to answer -- don't go solely on my thoughts!

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Alan.
My blog: It's not work, it's gardening!

I also believe that they should be carefully moved to their respective locations before they shoot, perhaps by March when the snow has melted and there's no longer a threat of a major freeze. If they already have 2 years of establishment, I'm guessing their rhizomes have already spread out at least 1-2ft in each direction for the runners. They are also still fairly dormant early in the year so there's less shock for the roots, and once they do end up shooting in their new locations, they can quickly re-establish themselves in the ground.

I've found that a significant amount of root and rhizome growth does usually occur during the shooting phase, and given that your bamboos are probably already 4-8ft tall at that age, they will be much harder to move once you let them shoot again.

BTW with 100% success, how have you been protecting your bamboos? I am still kind of inexperienced in over-wintering because I never thought there was a need for it until I saw major leaf burn on some species with a record tying low temperature last winter. Here's what I've done, but I don't know if all of these setups will get me 100% leaf protection until the end of winter.
http://stevesbamboogarden.blogspot.com/ ... .html#more

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http://stevespeonygarden.blogspot.com/

Steve,

I use a method similar to your method 4 (I think), except that I simply bend the culms to ground, then weigh them down with something heavy! I 'have' consistent snow which really is a huge help (well, when it comes, the year that it didn't and we hit -32C was messy!). When the boo is young (say first and second year plants) I just wrap the culms and foliage with frost cloth then bend that down to the ground to get covered with snow. If I miss a culm, or a few branches slip away from the protection, they will, almost without fail, be burned and killed by the cold. Ah, the joys of bamboo in zone 4b/5a!
In the past I tried some plants with wrapping, but these were usually pretty damaged in the spring. This is the only method that has ever resulted in the complete death of a plant (P. nuda).

Thanks for the replies guys. I think I will move the boos as early as possible.

Paul

With my tarp over method(4), I have a sensor under one of the tarps and it currently reads 43.4F while the outside sensor reads 20.2F and the difference seems to be growing larger and larger each day as it gets colder outside, but the area under the tarp keeps its warmth. This is the biggest temperature differential I've seen so far with any setup so I believe protection method that involves bringing the culms to ground lvl should successfully protect the bamboo. I'm not sure if it works in zone 2-3, but with difference I'm seeing, my tarped bamboos will never experience below freezing temperatures with an average winter.

I think Needmore was the first one to introduce ground tarping to this forum, but I never thought that a tarp could make that big of a difference. If wrapping doesn't work in your zone, then it looks like you might need to try something new like christmas lights once they get too big to bend to the ground.

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http://stevespeonygarden.blogspot.com/

It will work for a while, but once the culms get a bit bigger, there is no way you are going to be able to bend them that much.

Ya, my biggest Boo is only 15' high and it is more difficult to bend for sure! It did produce a 20' shoot 2 years ago, and I was barely able to bend that thing down (and I left it up last winter to see what would happen... it was killed to the snow line!)

I use XMAS lights and a wrap on a lot of my plants (palms, bananas, So. Mag) and it works well. I don't know if it will be worthwhile on a large bamboo.

I have heard some of the tropical guys say that they have used Christmas lights to counteract a cold snap, but I don't know about them working in a cold climate. I think windchill would whisk away what little heat they produce.

I use mini-lights (non-LED) to keep banana pstems from freezing through my zone 4b/5a winters. They work very well, the key is to wrap the lights around the plants, then wrap the foliage etc. with frost cloth to help hold the heat in. This works VERY well and allows me to overwinter Sabal (minor, minor 'Brazoria', and Birmingham), Rhapidophyllum, Musa, So. mag, etc. So, ya, it is useful in colder zones. I might plant out a few of my Trachys as well, since they aren't really all that nice as houseplants (really, they are quite ugly compared to most other palms!). I have a sizeable T. 'nanital' that I bought years ago as 'takil', as well as about 100000 T. fortunei plants, a 15 gallon T. fortunei var. wagnerianus, and some of the less common ones ('true' takil, princeps, nanus, takil var. urkhense). To get back on topic, however, I think that once a bamboo reaches 20' this will become a mute point as protecting more than a few culms will be rather labour intensive!

If things are unwrapped it would make little sense to use these lights up here. Also, using C-9 type lights would just be a recipe for disaster (i.e. fire). Another good option is heating cables that turn on at 33f and off at 40f. I've used these on palms as well, with good results.