Drought effect on cold hardiness

[Alan_L]

Maybe this has been discussed before, but I've now got some pretty good data about this, so thought I'd post again.

If you live where it gets pretty cold even for a short time, your bamboos will really suffer if they are drought-stressed!

For the last two years, here in St. Louis we've had pretty dry fall and winters. Not leaf-curling dry, but dry. Both winters were quite mild, with temps rarely getting into the mid-20's F, often staying above freezing. Until... we get the arctic blast and for 4-6 days temperatures get into single digit F with strong winds. This caused 95% of the leaves to die, and many culms too -- from 50% to 100% of them depending on the grove. Except for one grove, which had no culm death, not even a branch death -- completely leafed out again in the spring (even though all leaves died).

At first I thought it was the species (Ph. virella) but that didn't make sense, as the other Ph. around it all suffered. But it happened 2 years in a row.

The other day I finally realized that my gutter drainage pipe empties right into that little grove, so it was getting more water than any other planting!

I think I'm going to make sure I water as much as I can this year, even if I think it might not be that dry... just in case.

[T9D]

I always make sure to really water well going into winter. When it freezes it's cutting off water to the plant. Simulating drought. If it's already dry and then freezes, it just made sense to me it would be worse. Especially if you get cold blasts of wind, just because it's cold out and winter, doesn't mean it won't dry it out the same as a dry summer. It may take a little longer, but it will happen all the same.

[pokenei]

Agreed. I had wrapped/tarped most of my bamboo over this past Winter. But oddly, the few that I didn't protect actually look better, with less Winter damage. The only explanation is the exposed bamboo received enough water from the rain and snow, wheres the fully protected ones diverted precipitation elsewhere, thus not receiving enough water to withstand cold windy days.