Boo Shoots for 2010

[ghmerrill]

well, since no one else has said anything yet.... of course, we have been unseasonably warm, whilst all the rest of you are buried up to your earballs in snow...

so, heres the low down, which hopefully does not fortell of an up and coming frost, setting my happy time meter back to a big fat 0!

Yushania maling
Chimonobambusa tumidissinoda
Chimonobambusa quadrangularis
Chimonobambusa marmorea
Pleoblastus viridistriatus


gonna have to make a detailed walk through, there may be more to add.

[foxd]

If we have any shoots here they are buried in snow.

The Buddha Belly in the basement still has a shoot from last year that has recently started growing again. Somehow it knows that Spring is near.

[gunner]

yipeeeee, now i have to walk the boo garden everyday!!! i also planted ladino clover and will try to get some pics soon ..."golden square stem", "yellow groove", "sino.intermedia" , "yushania maling", "chinese walking stick", "bashania fargesii", and waiting...,...

[ghmerrill]

wow, thats quite a selection! I walked around some today, and noticed that I also have Pleo. viridistriatus Chrysophyllus shooting, as well as Fargesia scabrida, Borinda albocerea, and a Thamnocalamus had a shoot about a foot tall... I just dont know what kind of Tham it is... is either aristatus/ or crassinodus. I got the two plants mixed up, and I dont know which is which. one is planted in one area, the other about 100' away. only one is shooting.

[ocimum_nate]

My Bashania fargesii put this shoot up a few weeks ago although I am cheating since I had it indoors.

[gunner]

all my shoots are only a few inches tall so far, but i can ad P. aruea and hennon today. we lost our sunny 70deg. for a while but we could use more rain anyway!

[foxd]

Inspired by the early reports of shoots this year I went out and poked around in the snow looking for shoots around the early shooters.

I got nothing.

[boonut]

Bambusa Vulgaris vittata is putting up new "branches" from the base that really look like new shoots. Quite a few are coming up.

[gbock]

Phyllostachys vivax 'Aureocaulis' (in pot)
Phyllostachys nigra 'Punctata' (in pot)

[stevelau1911]

Shooting provides a perfect opportunity for me to divide up my 5-gal rufa. It kind of indicates that the plant has enough energy built up to survive the shock of a division while the shoots are still less than 1 inch so they likely won't abort.

I split it into 4 (2gallon) plants, making sure each one has enough root mass to support its culms and with the heat of the greenhouse, they will hopefully get to a decent size when I decide to plant them in spring.

It nearly filled up the entire pot with roots over the winter.

[ghmerrill]

went out today and found several more species... off the top of my head, the Tham. tessalatus is shooting, P. aureo. harbin, Ps. viridula

[Alan_L]

Gene -- are all of those early for you, or is this the normal time?

[ghmerrill]

everything is pretty early this year... the last 3 days have been bright, sunny, and warm, so that has made the shoots really take off.... Im hoping the cold is over now, although thats a bit too optimistic I think... normal for this time of year would be some of the early shooters, like rufa and scabrida.... and both of those are well along. some of them, like the quadrangularis, the shoots are 18" tall now, but that is a fall shooting boo, and the fall crop got killed by the almost record setting cold we had back in november. from my recollection of living here 35 years, if we have freakishly cold weather that is much worse than usual, it usually hits in November and April....
Im really hoping for no april cold snap this year!

[stevelau1911]

It's hard to believe that some greenhouse bamboos are shooting for me when it still gets down to around freezing every night. One thing I'm noticing a lot on especially the moso is that shoots that have halted their growth in December due to the cold are starting to grow again without generating any new shoots yet. My rufa is probably the only one that is making authentic new shoots, which hopefully won't be set back too much from dividing it.

The ones that are shooting seem to be growing at a very slow rate, likely due to inadequate temperatures and sunshine.

[foxd]

I've noticed on plants in the basement that growth almost stops when temperatures drop below 50°F. That includes bamboo shoots too. I have a Bambusa ventricosa shoot from last year that just started growing again in the past week. No new shoots yet, except for maybe the Raddia.

I have high hopes for this year.