The hardware cloth I have should have openings too small for any ground vermin to get through. Voles do come above ground, though, I've seen them (the varmints have been disturbing my apple and cherry trees). There'd have to be fencing above ground, too. One thing toxic to them are daffodils, so if ...

I have some hardware cloth with openings smaller than 1/4 inch I can use to protect the shoots. If I have to amend the soil (very likely with sandy clay) I'll probably make a cage in the ground to keep the underground vermin out. If I thought it would survive above ground, I'd put it in a whiskey ba...

From your description, it sounds like scale insects. Have you got a larger version of the third photo? Scale sort of attach themselves to the plant, like limpets, and suck out the sap. I've used insecticidal soap, spraying and manually rubbing them off when they infested an orchid, to get rid of them.

I'm window shopping for next year, hopefully I can find a vendor that ships to Alaska for a reasonable price. That might be more difficult than finding an Alaska hardy bamboo. Since it would a novelty maybe the pests won't want to make a meal of it. Not sure about the four-legged pests (moose), thou...

Yeah, I kind of figured any bamboo would be a challenge outdoors. If I only lived in Sitka (7b) or even Homer or Seward (7a), there might be more possibilities. Thanks for the suggestion, I'm still sort of keen to try anyway.

It almost looks like leaf miner damage to me. Maybe shine a light through the leaf and see if the trails let more light through? There are leaf miners here that plague the birch trees and lilacs, the damage seems to appear overnight.

So, I'm in Anchorage, technically a 4b, but it hasn't gotten to -25º for a while. Last winter the lowest temperature was a balmy -15º. I'm curious if there is any bamboo that would survive outside in a clayey/sandy soil, 19+ hours of daylight at the height of summer, and occasionally bumping up to 8...