Freeze Damage

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Tarzanus
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Re: Freeze Damage

Post by Tarzanus »

Steve, you have missed the point. It was not record breaking cold, it was just constantly frigid for nearly 2 months. That, combined with a no-snow combination, dry wind and no rain or snow during that time did the damage. We have had the same thing around here and after a week of rain and nicely warm temperatures, soil is still frozen. It seems like top 20cm thawed, if you try to go deeper, it remains frozen. The "best" news is, now that the rain has gone, we have another cold blast on it's way and the soil will freeze again. You guessed right, again, we did not receive any snow.

I hope this strange weather pattern doesn't stay around here...
johnw
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Re: Freeze Damage

Post by johnw »

stevelau1911 wrote:My guess is that Austria doesn't get that cold,
Guess wrong, the climate is varied, think about it - mountains, weather patterns must be greatly affected by them to say nothing of the altitudinal variance.

From the EBS a couple of days ago.....Michael's about a half hour southwest of Munich. No palms there as in Vienna.
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johnw coastal Nova Scotia
Nicholas
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Re: Freeze Damage

Post by Nicholas »

@steve

Thanks for the suggestions! I'll leave the cover on for quite some time since pubescens is an early shooter and we do get the occasional frost as late as early May.
I assume one of the reasons that the plant is doing pretty ok, given the constant frost we've had is the amount of horse manure I've thrown all around that area. It is probably creating some decay heat which is helping to avoid that the soil freezes. Like Tarzanus said it was basically below freezing for two months which has allowed frost to move quite far down into the soil. I'd say here at least the first 15-20cm are frozen solid.
I've mulched heavily around my bamboos which is probably helping in this regard.

As I said the potted specimens took a lot of damage which makes sense because they have been frozen solid for such a long time.

@Tarzanus

Yeah, lets hope we don't get one of those freakishly cold late winters like a couple of years ago!
I guess we should have a relatively similar climate so we're both in the same boat on this.

@John

You are right, here in Austria we have quite varied weather / different weather zones because of the mountains even though we're a pretty small country. Where I'm from it is pretty flat and we're at the outreaches of the pannonian basin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pannonian_Basin)
This means usually hot and dry summers and moderate winters, however the openness does allow cold fronts to be pushed in quickly and we have on occasion experienced cold spells that went to -20*C / -4F.

I guess we all try to push the limits of what is possible in our climate zone in one way or another ;)

I've added two pictures, one of fargesia nitida black pearl showing what it does best (roll its leaves) next to a trachycarpus which may or may not survive this winter ordeal and another one of the huangwhenzhu. I'm particularly happy about this boo because it hadn't produced any sizeable shoots for 2 seasons (probably because of the darned voles) and has now finally had a chance to show its beauty.
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johnw
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Re: Freeze Damage

Post by johnw »

Nicholas - How old is your F. 'Black pearl'? It's quite tall.

Same complex weather here, Nova Scotia is about 7hrs. by car long and less than 1hr wide, circa 700k x <100k. Surrounded by ocean, some of which is warm salt water, some cold salt water most of which doesn't freeze in winter though to the northeast along the Gulf of St Lawrence the sea can freeze in some winters. The Bay of Fundy empties its cooled water & refills with relatively warm water twice a day making for crazy mild spots on the coast. That makes for very complex climates; a km or two from the coast can be continental. We could do with a few well-placed Austrian mountains!

Munich seemed not so cold to me when I lived there so surprised Rosenheim got so cold when Nuremburg was only -15c.
johnw coastal Nova Scotia
pokenei
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Re: Freeze Damage

Post by pokenei »

This winter has been rather mild. I trusted the winter forecast that said this winter would be extra cold due to la nina or something, and tarped many of my boos to the ground. That was a big mistake. Some of my smaller boos like Nigra and Beijing were completely shredded by mice - they even chewed down some culms :x

The coldest temperature here so far were in the mid teens (Celsius) and this was back in January or December. For any boo that I didn't cover, there's partial leaf-burns due to strong winter winds.

In hind sight, I would have wrapped the boos up or provide some wind protection instead of tarping them to the ground. There's been an explosion of mice population in my backyard despite trapping and killing over 40 of them during the summer months.
Tarzanus
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Re: Freeze Damage

Post by Tarzanus »

I've had the same mice related problems when I overly mulched and tarped my Phyllostachys Aurea. It was one of those crazy winters that killed off everything above ground on that bamboo. When I cleaned the darn thing in the spring, I have noticed that rodents didn't starve in the mulch. There was a city of tunnels, eaten leaves, branches, shoot buds, roots, ... you name it. Since then, I only mulch with bamboo litter and even that - never more than a couple of inches. We just have too many rodents roaming around.
PS: things got HUGELY (I think that's the word I'm looking for :mrgreen: ) better since I got a dog that loves vole hunting. Here she is, workin' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2PHRbttvpI&t=3s
She leaves mice to her feline companions my neighbors have. :) Mouse traps do the rest.
mshaffer
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Re: Freeze Damage

Post by mshaffer »

My moso made it through the winter with almost no freeze damage. I think someone said it's our 4th mildest winter ever (near Washington DC).
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Tarzanus
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Re: Freeze Damage

Post by Tarzanus »

Tonight, I have removed all the Borinda fungosa culms. Result was of this winter was straw colored branches. All of them. Most of old culms were still green, at least on the lower nodes. All 2016 culms were fried, spring shoots had necrotic (first they appeared watery, then turned orange with time) spots, splintered canes and they too began developing some sort of urine kind of scent. They started rotting! I really hope the roots and rhizomes survived! :roll:

I have kept several inches on old culms that seemed healthy. If they manage to suck at least some energy out of them or somehow manage to wake their nodes and re-leaf, I'll be super-happy. Nodes seem to be fried though..

Checked all my other bamboos for any signs of shooting as well. No signs of shooting on any of my Phyllostachys, Shiroshima or Pseudosasa japonica. Fargesia Rufa shows hardly any cold related damage. I have removed like hundreds of dry culms out, but they were all dry by fall last year. It was just way too crowded. It has shoots emerging, but not nearly as many as last year. I have a feeling the first shoots will be a bit earlier, but the majority may arrive in a couple of weeks. Rufa division on the other hand in a sunny position (not shaded by itself) has shoots that are already a couple of inches tall.

Well, I partly lied about Phyllostachys shooting. I have kept a couple of Phyllostachys arcana 'Luteosulcata' seedlings under my PVC tunnel where I kept lettuce and garlic through the winter. They all started shooting and seem to be extremely happy.
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stevelau1911
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Re: Freeze Damage

Post by stevelau1911 »

Last winter wasn't all that bad, and it did get down to 3F in early March, but overall, it is a much better year than it has been in the past years.

The one that made it through the best is the moso bicolor which looks almost unscathed through the double tarp so it should get back quite a bit of size with new shoots in another month. Some leaves touching the tarp were burned, but overall, this is not bad.
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The parvifolia which had no protection at all because it is too big got burned on the upper extremities, but no top kill at all, and has retained at least half of it's leaves which is enough to send up bigger shoots this year. It has always been the best performer here and continues to do so. If you are in zone 5-6 with brutal winters, this is a must have because it holds leaves better than any other bamboo I have ever had through the winters.
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Atrovaginata appears to be a bit less hardy than parvifolia as it is only holding onto about 1/4 of it's leaves, but still no top kill, and may make bigger culms in the grouping where there are a lot of culms with green leaves.
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Decora is about as hardy as atrovaginata this year in terms of leaf retention, but it does seem to have top kill on the tops of the culms.
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Propinqua appears less hardy than normal this year, but the culms are still alive even with the total burn, and these culms will likely all go to flower along with any new shoots that emerge.
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The less hardy makinoi, nigra, and dulcis don't look so good, but they should still retain their size since the culms don't appear top killed.
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Tarzanus
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Re: Freeze Damage

Post by Tarzanus »

Forgot to post images of my Moso seedling in the freeze damage thread.
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Despite completely frozen soil, it did not suffer much damage. I have expected it to suffer much more than it actually did. If the soil would have thawed earlier, I'm sure there would be even less damage.
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