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NobeyamaGP wrote:I have about 12-18" of somewhat rocky soil with occasional coal chunks and underneath that is what seems to be solid rock.

My hope is that since the rhizomes are generally shallow growing, my bamboo will be ok. Does anyone have any experience with this sort of situation?

Frequently, the underlying rock is actually fractured enough that plant roots can penetrate and access deeper moisture. While I am not familiar with your area, perhaps this is the case for you.

If your property supports large trees, that is a good sign that your soil can also support healthy bamboo growth. Sometimes, if you dig around a bit, you will find that there are better pockets of soil here and there.

I remember that Brad's Ph. atrovaginata planting was in a raised bed with a foot or so of soil on packed gravel or cement, and it was a beauty.

Well, I planted my other 3 boos in the back pasture last night. I discovered that the soil back there is less rocky and definitely thicker. Hopefully richer too, since the previous owner had horses and goats grazing on it. I made use of some of the old horse manure from the barn when planting all my bamboo. I discovered that both the Yellow Groove varieties had shoots breaking the surface in their pots and the Atro had a shoot below the surface that I exposed when removing the plant from its pot. Aureocaulis is even had 4 shoots breaking the surface in the pot!



I hope they all survive. You all have reassured me somewhat. All I can do is wait and see at this point. Thanks!

I have a nice little Bamboo called Ph Stimulosa. It handles the cold much better than Ph Aureosulcata. Should work well for you I would think

The P stimulosa I have is less cold hardy than aureosulcata. Looks a lot like P bisettii, especially when less mature. I wonder if that is what you have, as bissetti is one of the few hardier than aureosulcata.

I'm not familiar with Bisettii. I tried looking thru the photo section and still cant say. Whatever it is , its very hardy. We had -12f a couple winters back and it didn't slow it down at all.

I chased Phy stimulosa around the US a bit and kept getting the wrong one, now I think I have the right one (did the same with Phy viridiglaucescens and never got the real deal) and it looks quite different from all the wrong ones. One of the wrong ones was extremely hardy, I think there are photos here posted as Stimulosa but it is not, I believe it is a form of Phy heteroclada, one much hardier than all my other forms of Phy heteroclada. Once it produced mature shoots they had an attractive brown tint, the branches as I recall we very horizontal. It came from Adam Turtle in TN as Phy stimulosa, I originally picked it up at his farm after a harsh winter it was in much better shape than most of his other 200 species.

The bottom picture on this page is a shoot of it: http://needmorebamboo.com/?page_id=618

Brad -- the Ph. heteroclada I got from a friend in town here a few years back I believe also came from Adam Turtle's place 25+ years ago. This is still in juvenile state for me after 4 or 5 years, but always leafs back out. My friend's grove was small but so beautiful. He never said anything about it being Ph. Stimulosa though, although maybe he'd forgotten. I don't think I have any photos of his shoots or branches, and he's since removed that plant.

Alan_L wrote:Brad -- the Ph. heteroclada I got from a friend in town here a few years back I believe also came from Adam Turtle's place 25+ years ago. This is still in juvenile state for me after 4 or 5 years, but always leafs back out. My friend's grove was small but so beautiful. He never said anything about it being Ph. Stimulosa though, although maybe he'd forgotten. I don't think I have any photos of his shoots or branches, and he's since removed that plant.

Adam I believe still calls his Stimulosa and he had 3 other forms of Heteroclada so it is likely one of those 3 you have and not the 'Stimulosa' form.

Here is what I have. Cloudy today so the photos aren't too bright. I can get better ones tomorrow if you want. The culm colors range from green, greenish yellow to yellow.

Are the shoots fuzzy?

The culm sheaths are a little fuzzy.

NobeyamaGP wrote:Well, I planted my other 3 boos in the back pasture last night. I discovered that the soil back there is less rocky and definitely thicker. Hopefully richer too, since the previous owner had horses and goats grazing on it. I made use of some of the old horse manure from the barn when planting all my bamboo. I discovered that both the Yellow Groove varieties had shoots breaking the surface in their pots and the Atro had a shoot below the surface that I exposed when removing the plant from its pot. Aureocaulis is even had 4 shoots breaking the surface in the pot!



I hope they all survive. You all have reassured me somewhat. All I can do is wait and see at this point. Thanks!

I am excited. I can't wait for your next winter.

springtimeshoots wrote:
I am excited. I can't wait for your next winter.

Thanks. I sure hope we don't have a winter like last winter for a good while. We had an overall low of -7F and a wind chill of -17F.

The plants have been in the ground for a few weeks and my new shoots are doing well! The largest by far is the Spectabilis with 1 shoot over 30" tall and has begun losing its culm sheaths at the bottom.


The Spectabilis also surprised me a few days ago with 2 other shoots that were about 5" each as of yesterday.


I don't have pictures of the others, but the Aureocaulis has 4 shoots about the size of the 2 newest shoots on the Spectabilis. The Atro has just begun shooting and has 2 shoots that are about 1-2" long. It also has a lot of yellow leaves on it and just doesn't look as healthy as the 2 Yellow Groove plants. I've started giving it extra water to see if it's just not getting enough. The Rufa apparently shot before I got it as I haven't seen any activity from it, but there were culms still in culm sheaths when I received the plants. These newest shoots have reached full height and have begun leafing out.

I've also been dealing with pests recently. Something has been digging near the Aureocaulis and Rufa. As near as I can tell, it didn't bother the plants because I haven't noticed any damage. I reburied them and added some more mulch on top of the dirt and mulch that was dug out and in the last few days they haven't been disturbed. If this keeps up, I'm going to have to make some chicken wire cages for them, I guess.