Help me diagnose this leaf damage please.

[I_am_Ian]

Any idea what is causing this damage? It's on leaves that grew this spring on a Bambusa Textilis Kanapaha.

[dependable]

Is plant potted & inside or planted outside? Could be over watered, underfed, not hardened off enough when put outside ? If you feed it, start off with low dose. Allow to dry somewhat between waterings.

Following my own advice, I still have problems with young plants getting dying leaf tips indoors.

[I_am_Ian]

It's in the ground outside since last summer. I will try to water it less. We do have pretty strong wind here so I was wondering if that could cause damage like this.

[I_am_Ian]

It has been in this location for almost a year. The taller cane on the right and the smaller ones came with the plant (from tropical bamboo in Florida). The cane on the left came up last october but didn't branch or leaf out until the spring of this year. They both have the same type of damage and the shorter canes have dropped all their leaves.

But most of the leaves look completely fine and healthy, maybe 20% have damage.

EDIT: Weird, the photo on my phone's browser is upright but on my PC's it's rotated.

[moriphen]

How large is that planting area and how hot does that sidewalk / driveway get?

[dependable]

Surrounded by all that concrete, it might be due to heat. If that's the case, newer growth higher up will do better.

[I_am_Ian]

The concrete probably gets warm considering its in the sun all day. Does it look like heat damage of some kind? It also gets quite windy and hot during the summer here.

[needmore]

I generally suspect waterlog when I see that look, has it been soggy/does that spot drain?

[Tarzanus]

Extremely hot soil and a lot of moisture (constant watering) can completely kill roots. I've had black pots that got exposed to summer sun. They kind of survived the heat, but when they got watered a couple of times, they all became yellow and weak. As we all know, warmer water has lower capacity of dissolved air.

Same thing when overwintering them this year. Too much heat and not enough light caused them to look ratty. Extremely dry air worsened everything and when I watered, I noticed that soil remained soaked - none of bamboos used any water, same with Arundo donax. They all hardly survived or died during the winter. I should have left them outside, they would all live...

[I_am_Ian]

The soil is usually damp there, but I never see any standing water. How much water is too much?

[stevelau1911]

One thing you might want to try is to water it with some miracle gro, and see if it is simply phosphorus deficiency. In tomatoes, it only took 1 day to see a difference, and now they are taking off quickly, but if it is a basic NPK deficiency, bamboo should respond with visible results within 1-2 weeks.

[I_am_Ian]

It doesnt seem to be water logged. I dug an 8"x8" hole right next to the clump and the soil was pretty damp but not soggy or wet. I filled the hole with water and it was drained within 15 minutes.

I will try the miracle grow next.

Would radiant heat from the surrounding concrete really damage a tropical clumper like this? I assumed the more heat the better with a bambusa textilis. Could a dry wind be the cause? Other nearby clumps have similar damage.

[Tarzanus]

Dry wind could be an issue. I'm not sure about how delicate Bambusa textilis is when it comes to hot dry air.

[bambambooboo]

You're in for a bit of some odd speculation here: but, you planted a baby bamboo at the intersection of two sidewalks? Do you have a lot of dog walkers in your neighborhood rounding that corner?

My other concern would be that with the constraints of the sidewalk which is probably a few inches thick of concrete and being next to what appears to be a water meter, the rhizomes might one day push against what is likely PVC pipe heading from the meter to your house so you might want to shovel down and cut between the boo and that line every so often, close-in to the existing bamboo. But even that, in such a constrained area, depending on what bamboo that is, might not cut it because likely, eventually, the footprint will overwhelm that space.

Thread on footprint concerns of clumpers here:
http://www.bambooweb.info/bb/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=6570

I've a similar issue in one area though not that constrained and I'm not sure yet how to handle it. I'm hoping to keep the rhizome off the pipe or at worst have it just grow around the pipe without, if lucky, destroying it, but I could be in for some trenching and repair expenses in the future--at which time maybe I'll pour a concrete trench for the pipe--because the pipe runs just a few feet in along a driveway I wanted framed in bamboo.

I've the space to cut easily enough for a few years. But I just looked closer at your post and I see you identify the boo as Kanapaha and you got it from Robert so you're likely still in Florida so I gotta tell you my Kanapaha (from Roy) is quite prolific in culm production. I forget when I bought it, maybe four years ago. But I've already 8 divisions from it and each of those have more than a foot of footprint shown here (these divisions are maybe a year or two old):

[I_am_Ian]

I'm actually in California about 40 miles east of San Francisco. Zone 9b according to the USDA plant hardiness zone map, but with temps dipping into the low 20's last december (and top killing all of my young tropicals), I decided to plant more for zone 9a.

That's my driveway and a sidewalk you're seeing and I don't think I've seen a single dog walker come into my court.

The damage is on three bamboos shown in the first picture. The Kanapaha in the foreground, directly behind it is a Bambusa Chungii and to the right is a Textilis Fasca. They all have similar leaf browning on the edges, some more than others. The Fasca and Kanapaha being the worst and the Chungii faring better.

In the second pic, on the other side of the driveway is another Textilis, a Mutabilis and it doesn't have any damage. Neither do the two smaller Borinda Bolianas behind it.

They're all in full sun and all receive the same amount of water and all seem to drain adequately. Anybody with knowledge of these bamboo types and their tolerance of dry winds please help!