Noticed In. Tessellatus getting an early start. Too early.

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David Arnold
Middle Tennessee Bamboo Farm
USDA zone 6b/7a

A lot of plants are going to get cold fried if there is a snap of real winter around here. Hope we don't get burned, yet we need enough cold to keep pest species away.

If it never drops below the upper 20s, those shoots might be fine since light frosts usually won't kill off shoots. I have wall o waters which I generally use for garden plants to give them an extra month to start, and these things seem to keep plants protected even when it gets down to around 20F so I don't see why they wouldn't work on bamboos as long as the shoots aren't taller than the barrier of water yet.

My last frost date is supposed to be April 20-30 so I'm usually in the safe zone if shoots emerge after the middle of April so I usually hope April 15 to be around when they first emerge given no major frosts are in the forecast. The only time I've ever had problems with early shooting is with potted moso seedlings that are tarped over for the winter. These guys generally experience warmer soil all winter and once they are taken out of their tarps and placed under full sun where their black nursery pots really heat up, I've seen them shoot as early as mid March which requires me to use a frost cloth to save the shoots until it is safe.

I'm in Monroe county which is right under the middle of the lake, one of the better places relative to the surrounding counties where median last frost days can be well into May.


I also never knew tesselatus was an early shooter since last year, I think fargesia rufa was the first one for most people, starting late February through March, followed by moso by the first week of March. I also though the daylight hours had to be a certain length to trigger shooting, but you're getting it way before spring.

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http://www.flickr.com/photos/31489820@N02/

http://stevespeonygarden.blogspot.com/

David, I saw your post and looked at my In. Tess., which I have been trying not to look at too often since it suddenly and inexplicably topkilled last spring and later only had 1 green culm later in the season. Apparently mine is several weeks ahead of yours, with 5 shoots apparently just now leafing out and 2 more that havent leafed yet. Is this plant usually an early shooter at all? I'm just glad mine is alive--apparently its shoots easily made it through all the cold wind we had, but there are oak leaves partially shielding/shading that tiny plant.

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God Bless,

Matthew

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Genesis 2:8 And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there He put the man whom He had formed.

I checked around the Fargesia drac. 'Rufa' a few days ago and found no sign of Spring growth. And since it is one of the early shooters I figure I'm safe so far. However I did dig up a couple of Sasa veitchii that were making a break for it and found a couple of swollen buds on the rhizomes.

Weather forecast is for cold and back up to the 50's for the daytime temperatures.

Sweet Woodruff is growing like crazy.

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Southern Indiana. Theoretically the same climate as 'needmore' & 'Eastlandia'.
My Bamboo List.

Wooooo!!!! I have 16 foot tall Moso in Southern Indiana!

Hello All,
We will have nights in the single digits before the winter is over no matter how mild the winter, so I don't know if these shoots will survive. This is abnormally early for Tessellatus which is an early shooter here in Middle Tennessee. This clump of Tess is growing beside a spring fed creek that stays in the 50's year round so I suspect that may have a modifying effect in addition to the mild winter. It may also provide some protection if/when the temps drop dangerously low.

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David Arnold
Middle Tennessee Bamboo Farm
USDA zone 6b/7a

David, found a couple on my Tessellatus. Here in the mountains we should be some cooler than your location. Maybe we'll skip the single digits this year? We've used less than half the normal amount of firewood and the days seem to be slightly longer.

Would covering these new early shoots with mulch be a good idea?

Matt

Hey Matt,

I can't remember a winter that we did not have a single digit night at some point, but I'm not opposed to not having it get that cold. I have changed my philosophy regarding covering plants. When groves are small you can cover them, but as they mature it becomes impossible without a great deal of effort. I think sometimes when I have covered them in the past that I may have done more damage than good so now I just let the plants adapt.

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David Arnold
Middle Tennessee Bamboo Farm
USDA zone 6b/7a

Normally we get a bout of single digit temperatures sometime during the first week or so of February, though we have had single digit temperatures as late as March 4th. Of course this is based on the records of the campus weather station which only go back to 2000.

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Southern Indiana. Theoretically the same climate as 'needmore' & 'Eastlandia'.
My Bamboo List.

Wooooo!!!! I have 16 foot tall Moso in Southern Indiana!

My seedlings are also shooting, even those that were outside in the (not quite) cold. Almost all of my Moso seedlings are shooting, Pseudosasa japonica that was bought last summer is filling the pot with small shoots, Shiroshima poked out one rhizome that might end up being a shoot, Fargesia murielae in the ground only needs a week or two of warm weather and one good rain to start shooting, today I've seen potted Borinda fungosa is also preparing to put out shoots. Borinda is the only bamboo I kept inside in unheated stairway (15°C).

Borinda fungosa - elongating buds in the middle of the clump. Soil around the bamboo is being lifted on several spots which makes me think it's going to shoot quite soon.


One of my Moso seedlings kept outside started shooting. Shoot doesn't look large, but it would most likely die in temperatures close to -10°C we'll recieve. This one is going in. When temperatures get higher in March, it will join other bamboos outside. Hairy culm next to the new shoot is one of the last summer's shoots. Leaves are burnt, but whole plant seems OK.

Hey Tarzanus,
Is the winter in your part of the world warmer than usual? It certainly has been here.

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David Arnold
Middle Tennessee Bamboo Farm
USDA zone 6b/7a

Hello David!
We didn't see more than 1 inch of snow here and it lasted only for a couple of hours. We've had several "ugly" frost in the beginning of October (which did quite some damage to full speed growing bamboo), but after that temperature is higher than usual. We are currently seeing lowest temperatures this winter with -8°C in the morning and down to -3°C during the day (if it's sunny it's around freezing -> 0°C).
Until now this winter, we've usually had temperatures above freezing during the day and every week we've also seen couple of nights without freezing. That's why some bamboos decided it might be safe to poke out. They will think again when they see our weather forcast.



PS: forcast attached. Temperatures are in °C and not Fahrenheit. We'll have some nasty dry northern winds. Winter is coming

I just checked a number of bamboo species outside and several of them have swollen leaf buds and the Fargesia dracocephela 'Rufa' is showing a lot of rhizome growth and even has shoots poking up. That growth was not there a week ago.

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Southern Indiana. Theoretically the same climate as 'needmore' & 'Eastlandia'.
My Bamboo List.

Wooooo!!!! I have 16 foot tall Moso in Southern Indiana!

I was out walking the boo today and noticed that my Phyllostachys Rubromarginata has started sending up shoots....

For everyone getting shoots already, how warm is the soil?

I think it requires higher temperatures for bamboos to start shooting in warmer climates because the daylight is not as intense as it is when bamboos start shooting in May here. I find that lows around 43F and highs around 62F is around the temperature required for moso to start shooting, but in the deep south, the temperatures probably exceed that already. There might also be an internal clock which prevents bamboos from shooting very early regardless of a heat wave that may occur in February.

Anyways unless I have bamboos in black nursery pots under full sun, in a greenhouse or roofing tiles all over the bottom of the grove, phyllostachys bamboos generally won't start to shoot until close to the end of April which is usually when most of the trees are leafed out already.

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http://www.flickr.com/photos/31489820@N02/

http://stevespeonygarden.blogspot.com/