I am in plant zone 7a, though it is a little different due to maritime whether patterns. I have Vivax and Vivax aureocaulis. They are doing fine, but they do get leaf burn on top & working down in dry wind conditions between 10 and 20 degrees F. At this point, my first grove of green Vivax is making about 45 ft & close to 3 in base culm diameter. The P V aureocaulis is in good soil, but has a partial oak canopy above and is developing at a slower pace. The culms are thin walled and weak. Probably not thinner than many other phyllostachys, but supporting a taller stem.

Some of you folks inspire me with you optimism growing some of these plants in areas where they will probably freeze. Are you counting on global warming or are you doing commercial green house divisions for sale? (Both are fine with me, just curious).

I'm just keeping some vivax divisions around as potted specimens, and also to try learning more about bamboos. This current division is getting taken indoors to have a mini winter season so more growth can take place in the middle of the winter so they can go back out in the cold in a couple weeks, and continue their vernalization for another 2 months. The goal is by mid May to have a plant that has 5-10X the amount of leaf mass which can produce a lot more photosynthesis and shoot again to have a much higher output than if it were dormant the entire winter. I believe it should outperform the similar sized divisions that were tarped because I do not think they need 6 months of vernalization over the winter to be fully charged for shooting season. Based on how strong the new culm looks already, I believe it should be ready to shoot by the middle of May when vivax usually shoots around here.

If this vivax does produce a shoot at all in the spring, I believe that should count as an improvement from what it would have done otherwise, and given that there are at least 5X more leaves than before, I believe if it does shoot, it should be a much larger shoot than the one I got overwinter.

As far as the climate, I don't think vivax will ever be hardy here unless there's a sudden climate change, but having some less hardy bamboos allows me to keep experimenting on ways to keep them from defoliating. I know tarping boos to the ground will pretty much guarantee full protection, but I'm thinking of trying ways methods that can work on a larger grove such as using stretch wrap to protect each individual culm, misting the culms so they have a layer of ice, or a combination method. The biggest timber boos that seem effective around here are ones like atrovaginata, parvifolia, and dulcis which have a biotec potential of 40ft at best, but I want to have a way to grow the real giants like moso, vivax, bambusoides, or even some giant tropical clumpers which sometimes look very cool with their drooping fern like leaves.

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Good One. I am glad to see someone still takes time to experiment and learn.

hey steve, can you post an updated pic? I wanna see if you have been spinning the pot

Here's the updated picture nicely leafed out and it has been moved outside under the tarp bed already. If February is nice and cold, it should have a nice long period of vernalization, hopefully enough to charge up another shoot by May.


I replaced it with my weakest moso division out of all of them which only has 2 branches on top, almost no rhizome or root mass to see if it beats out the ones that are less weak. Moso seedlings typically start shooting in 4-6 days of being taken indoors, but this one has less foliage than a typical 2ft tall seedling culm so it will be interesting to see how it does. I'm predicting it might put out a 2ft tall survival shoot in about a month if it survives that long.

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My small, indoor Phyllostachys nigra division just poked up a shoot today. The leaf buds have been growing for the past few weeks. I hope rhizomes start to grow soon.

Each branch on my Phyllostachys parvifolia put out 1-2 new leaves, so it might shoot in a few more weeks.

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I wanted to see what parvifolia could do indoors so I grabbed a division just to see how long it will take in order to shoot. I'm very impressed how a rhizome like this can fill out a 3 gallon pot with roots even before putting out foliage. It seems to be maybe the strongest bamboo as far as root growth.


The other indoor bamboo I have is fargesia murielae seedlings and here's 3 of them just starting to form clumps.

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After only 12 days of being inside, my weakest moso division with the little foliage it has managed to produce 1 tiny shoot about the same size as the one produced by the vivax aureoucaulus a few months ago so I expect it to reach around 2ft. I'm actually very surprised because it looks like it barely has enough energy to survive. The 2 little branches at the end also put out a few new leaves so this is turning into a legitimate division.

Here's the shoot.


The parvifolia division has done nothing after a week and is starting to dry out so I'll give it a couple more days to see if any shoots emerge.

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I noticed on my Nigra, that the buds on broken branches swell first. Once those buds were elongated a bit, the shoot poked through the soil.

The Parvifolia has one branch with some damage, and the buds are quite elongated now, so hopefully it will shoot next week... Waiting for bamboo to shoot makes the plant so captivating!

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I had attempted to grow 4 #2 Red Margin indoors back in November, and they were doing great, but one day I noticed that the floor was covered in a sap-like substance and there were, what looked like, these tiny little bugs on most of the leaves. I figured it was mites or bamboo spiders,but didn't know. I got a little freaked having them in the house and ended up putting them in the ground the first week of Dec., which thank god turned out to be a mild winter. After reading all the indoor stories, I will experimenting 10 fold next winter and hopefully there will be nothing looking like a bug on the plants. I do understand that any of those pests don't harm the plant anyway. They just blotch the leaves.

My Phyllostachys Parvifolia made a new shoot yesterday

It is a little bit smaller than the main culm, but at least it is growing!
will try to post a picture when I find my camera.

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It is about time to bring back the vivax aureocaulus out of dormancy again now that it has been under a tarp for about 6 weeks.

Just to update on the indoor bamboos, the moso has produced 1 shoot that has risen to around 30 inches high and is branched out already. The parvifolia has 3 tiny shoots, but looks good now when I thought it wouldn't make it for a while.

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Just an update on all of these indoor bamboos.

The vivax aureocaulus ended up dying as it coudn't adjust to being brought back under the tarp due be being pampered with indoor conditions.

The moso still has it's 1st shoot has been outside for about a month, and looks OK.

The parvifolia is already leafing out, but definitely looks weaker than what I typically get with outdoor divisions due to the reduced light. I've had success with moso seedlings in the past by bringing them indoors and working them back out to outdoor conditions in the spring, but it looks like it doesn't work with divisions nearly as well. I might just bring this parvifolia outside once the freeze threat is over in a couple days.


Parvifolia

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Just to update on this topic, all of the bamboos in these picture except for the murielaes ended up failing to thrive in the summer and dying off. I think the growth produced under lower light could never truly adjust to full sun, and the vernalization requirements likely ran out. All the other mosos except for the one I took inside came back with a vengeance, including some of the ones that were given away locally to other growers. It really seems pointless to try overwintering bamboos indoors at room temperature.

From my past experience, it seems like plants under either a tarp or a greenhouse will come out much stronger than unprotected bamboos, even if they never suffer any leaf damage. It seems like the vernalization temperature which is ideally around 45F is pretty important for shoot buds to mature, but more importantly it seems to be essential for the overall vigor of the bamboo in the following season. Those temperate bamboos that were kept indoors over winter never produced any new roots after they were taken back outside. I don't plan on wasting any more divisions by taking them indoors.

I'm really not sure if the amount of sunlight they get makes much of a difference over winter since tarped bamboos have performed just about the same as the ones kept inside a greenhouse, but the 2-3 months of cooler temperatures seems to be absolutely necessary.

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Steve - Just a note on Phyllos indoors. Back in the 1970's I brought some P. aurea back from Richmond, Va. Outdoors I grew a piece as a tub plant for awhile and stored it for the winter in my dark cold room. Eventually it got too big to deal with so I gave it to music friends who rented a house that was very poorly heated. It grew like mad for a few years and never seemed to require a cold dormant period. Finally as with most idoor bamboos it required a gigantic pot, got pot bound, missed a watering and croaked. Coincidentally last night I read - in Meredith I think - that aurea is the one Phyllo that doesn't require so much if any vernalization.

You showed pix of F. murieliae seedlings in January 2012. Here that species flowered in 1999. Any chance they are nitida which set its very last bit of seed in 2011? The few remaining culms that flowered this year set no seed so that should be the official end of all old generation nitida in NS.

johnw - +12c rain & fog

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