Winter burn

[drjay9051]

I am pretty new to bamboo. I have about 100 plants both runners and clumpers. I live in zone 8b. Runners are running!!

My problem is the clumpers: seabreeze, oldhamii and Wong Chuk. They have been in the ground for 2 years. All bought as 15 gal. divisions, nice root balls. So for the past 2 winters total top kill. Even this past winter where we only had 3 days below freezing. Now I have some new growth coming up. What is going on? Just north of me is Kanapaha Gardens, a botanical garden with lots of clumpers and they look great (at least 40-50 feet tall) and green! Same species as I have.

Is it typical to have total kill above ground for fairly new plantings or is it just not right climate for clumpers? As mentioned Kanapaha is 40 miles NORTH of me but maybe they have some sort of micro climate?? I do mulch, water etc just not maintaining greenery.

[drjay9051]

52 views and nobody has any ideas about my problem????????????????

[Tarzanus]

There can be many reasons. Strong wind or sunlight during winter when ground or bamboo itself is frozen (you can check this one out I guess), wet soil, drought, critters, winds bringing salt from the sea, ... It could be micro climate thing, but if the plants are still juvenile, they might be much less hardy.

[foxd]

I guess nobody replied because from what you said you were hitting pretty close to the probable answer yourself. I checked on a map and part of the answer is that Kanapaha Gardens is located next to a large lake which help regulate the temperature there. (Microclimate)

[needmore]

My observation has been that it takes around 4 years for a given bamboo to start to show true hardiness, some even longer. I think that my nuda top killed the first 5 years and has not done so since then.

[Mike Beard]

sounds like I am south of you and I have bought from kanapha Gardens and my plants have died or gone to flower (alfonse karr) and died except for the B.Multiplex it is doing fine
I have Mutalbis(wong Chunk) and Oldhami and tropical blue the oldhami has not like the last 3 winters even though this past year was mild was not killed to the ground this year but it suffered still the mutalbis and tropical blue have had issues but come thru and upsizes and I started with 3 gal plants friom Roy Rodgers not want to pay the high price the gardens get for a field dug 15gal boo
it gets as cold here as it does in gainesville so i am trying to get things to size up so that i my add more boo and fruit trees
after rereading this post I don't know if my rambling will help you or not

mike

[marcat]

How well established has a lot to do with their hardieness and your microclimate. Zone 8b is pushing it for B. oldhammi it will need a couple mild winters to get going good and then a cold winter will set it back again. As to why you had no replys I have been actively checking the forum and didn't notice your April 2 posting do not know why.
MarCat

[drjay9051]

Thank you all for the input. I guess I'll just wait and see how they do down the road.

Thanks again.