Freeze Damage

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Cooper12
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Re: Freeze Damage

Post by Cooper12 »

Tarzanus wrote:By half way dormant you mean it sheds leaves?
Mine does as well in the beginning of the winter, soon after first couple of frosts. Gets yellow and looses 1/3 to 1/2 of leaves. Then it waits for the spring. This year, soil got frozen down to 50cm and hasn't thawed for a month. This week, we'll have first above freezing temperatures since December.
yep. wow much colder there than here. we have had days that top at or below freezing and many in the 30's F. generally they warm into the 40's or low 50's which limit the amount of time the ground stays frozen here
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Tarzanus
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Re: Freeze Damage

Post by Tarzanus »

It can handle -10°C for shorter duration quite well. Some damage can be seen, necrotic spots on leaves on the outside, leaves inside were mostly unaffected until later. It fought exceptionally well this year! It is gaining cold hardiness each year and I'm sure it would be in great condition if we would receive some (any?!) snow before the soil got frozen that deep.

It actually got cold enough for Spectabilis to start showing signs of cold related stress and even has a few burnt tips on top. That only happened at -20°C with wind. Other bamboos I have are in good condition except Chimonocalamus pallens seedlings, they are fried and most likely completely dead.

My Phyllostachys pubescens 'Moso' seedling which was damaged each winter got damaged again. It is also gaining cold resilience and is much less damaged that I'd expected. Most of the shaded leaves seem to be OK. Younger large culms are in much better shape (even though they are exposed to the south). If the soil would not get frozen, I doubt there would be much damage. At the moment, it's at least as hardy as Hibanobambusa tranquillans 'Shiroshima'.

After 2 months of freezing temps, we'll actually get up to +10°C. Most of the week, we'll also have light rain. Hopefully the cold is now over...
Nicholas
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Re: Freeze Damage

Post by Nicholas »

Nicholas - Is F. robusta 'Campbell' scorched after -15c? Seems toi be the temp at which it fries.

john
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Re: Freeze Damage

Post by Cooper12 »

Nicholas wrote:Nicholas - Is F. robusta 'Campbell' scorched after -15c? Seems toi be the temp at which it fries.

john
I need to try this one as my other Fargesia do well here
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vindiesel.zmaj
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Re: Freeze Damage

Post by vindiesel.zmaj »

Hi. I'm from Serbia, Europe. We had worst winter in the last 20 years. We had over 50 consecutive freezing days(didn't get over freezing whole day)rarely temperature climbed above -7C (20F). We are zone 6b/7a, but this winter was like 4b/5a at best. Anyways, we had couple of freezes -25 Celsius (-13F), and a lot of -15-18(5- -1F). And the end result is total kill of all bamboo. Ph. aurea,aureosulcata, aureosulcata spectabilis, nigra, decora, vivax aureocaulis, semiarundinaria fastuosa, pseudosasa japonica... All of it, all dead. Not a single leaf survived. Also we had only little or no snow during that time, so ground is frozen at least 1 foot deep. Horrible. Here are some pics before and after.
https://postimg.org/gallery/cygjrnis/7de9c18c/
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Re: Freeze Damage

Post by johnw »

I'm not terribly surprised that P. aurea, P. vivax, Semiarundinaria and Pseudosasa would be killed by such weather but surely the others will come back from the rhizomes. Here with our very cool springs that last till late June new shoots or releafing is usually very slow after such a bout. Hope for the best.

That is very beautiful soil you have!

john
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Re: Freeze Damage

Post by Nicholas »

Hi,

@john, I'm not sure whats going on with the database but it looks like you posted in my name/over a post of mine :P

Unfortunately I haven't got any robustas in my garden yet so I can't comment. Its something I'm planning to change soon. In the german ebs forum people are pretty optimistic about robusta after this winter but we'll see how they progress in the next few days/weeks when warmer weather comes along

@vindiesel.zmaj

I'm sure many of your bamboos will recover from the rhizomes and lower parts of the culms.
From the pictures you posted it looks like your bamboos are very wind exposed which may contribute to the problem.

Most of my bamboos that I have in pots, even though they are sheltered from direct sun and wind during the winter, will probably die because of the constant frost.
The ones in ground have been doing fine so far but it has not thawed enough yet to see the true damage.

Even aurea has survived like over a week of -20*C in a pot here for me a several years ago. It has taken its toll and only one of 3 plants made it but still, most phyllostachys are harder to kill than you think - given that they are big enough.
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Re: Freeze Damage

Post by johnw »

Nicholas - One of the hazards of being a moderator I obviously pressed edit rather than quote. Apologies, can you post again and I will delete and re-post mine afterwards?

john
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Re: Freeze Damage

Post by Nicholas »

@john, never mind - trying to edit this now will make the thread seem even less logical unless we change multiple posts ;)

For completeness sake: In the "lost" message I was talking about the weather also being bad in Austria with pretty much constant freezing temps since some time in December onwards. I will probably lose quite a few potted boos and some lotus I forgot to bring inside due to the frost. Ironically it never really got much lower than -15*C and that only briefly a few times. Basically it was constantly just slightly below freezing but over such a long time it still is a problem.

I just hope my bicolor will not be a complete loss - just my luck that we have such a crappy winter the first year I'm overwintering it outside (tarped)
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Re: Freeze Damage

Post by vindiesel.zmaj »

thank you all for kind words, hope they'll will recover.
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Re: Freeze Damage

Post by needmore »

Here is the opposite end of the spectrum, no freeze damage, this S tootsik 'Albostriata' stood full sun Sacramento summer sun, full winter exposure and has to be my best looking potted bamboo coming out of winter.
toot17JPG.jpg
Brad Salmon, zone 12B Kea'au, HI
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Re: Freeze Damage

Post by Cooper12 »

needmore wrote:Here is the opposite end of the spectrum, no freeze damage, this S tootsik 'Albostriata' stood full sun Sacramento summer sun, full winter exposure and has to be my best looking potted bamboo coming out of winter.
toot17JPG.jpg
Both my examples are pretty good here too. They get a little bronze of some foliage and a few shreaded leaves guessing from the wind but look good
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Nicholas
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Re: Freeze Damage

Post by Nicholas »

Just a short follow up on the damage here.

It looks like most of my potted boos have gotten struck quite badly. So far it hasn't thawed enough to show all damage but I can see that most leaves are pretty much gone from aurea, aureosulcata aureocaulis, borinda fungosa and a nigra and probably also violascens and a potted shanghai 3.

In ground things still seem ok. My huangwenzhu looks like it took some freeze damage on the culms but nothing too serious.
The bicolor looks ok with only some leaf-damage where the culms touched the inner tarp.

The pics are of huangwenzhu and bicolor.

Note that I basically built a little tipi with two tarp layers for the bicolor. The outer one is some relatively thick plastic tarp that is semi-transparent.
This is problematic as it can trap too much heat and with a construction of this size can get very wild temp fluctuations so I would generally advise against it.
I've left the top open so heated air can dissipate outwards through the inner tarp as a counter-measure and hopefully this will work out.
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Re: Freeze Damage

Post by johnw »

"I've left the top open so heated air can dissipate outwards through the inner tarp as a counter-measure and hopefully this will work out."

I think that the venting is a very reasonable counter-measure. I saw a $600 Monkey Puzzle Tree planted here several years ago, they protected it with woven opaque plastic fabric that looked like like feedbag material and closed the top which kept snow off the root system. The tree looked very poor in the spring.

john
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Re: Freeze Damage

Post by stevelau1911 »

My guess is that Austria doesn't get that cold, but it may be good to have a small heater inside that little greenhouse just in case it gets well below freezing since moso bicolor is not all that hardy especially when it is that small. Also it may be good to keep the cover on until the temperatures are warm enough to heat up the soil so that the soil is not continually damp from the spring rains. I would say once daytime highs are often getting up to 55F or higher with the soil generally drying out between rains would be about a good time especially since your plant is still very small. Paraffin/kerosene lamps, or electric space heaters may be good to have just in case. I have mine tarped to soil level(5-7inches high) with plastic tarp over white over-wintering cover so it shouldn't be affected by major temperature swings, high moisture, or a risk of extreme cold. Moso seems to hate standing water more than any other species, so if you get spring floods, a drainage ditch may be helpful. Don't worry about the lack of sun in the early spring. It should get plenty of it through that cover, and having the green leaves to supply energy to new shoots is far more important.

I don't think that huangwenzhu inversa is getting cold damage there. It looks more like burn from the sun. Damage usually occurs from the leaves, then branchs, and then the culm.


It has been a very warm winter, maybe warmer than last year's hopefully without the 1 extreme blast of arctic air that happened on Feb 14th of 2016(-12F). The lowest temperature that has occured in my bamboo garden this winter was 7F early in January, but looking at the forecast, there may not even be any more nights of single digits which would be great since that would mean no damage on anything which would result in bigger culms than ever. Maybe parvifolia can produce a 2 incher. Get a good 5 years of mild winters without extreme arctic blasts, and getting culms into the 3-4 inch range sounds feasible in upstate NY where I've never seen anything much bigger than soda-can sized out of any grove within the general region. I should have the right species to have the largest bamboos in the area.
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