Moving bamboo
 

I planted three bamboos a few months ago but now have to repot them and then replant them later - maybe in the autumn, maybe next spring. We have decided to fell and replant a neglected windbreak and the bamboos are in the way.

How can I make sure that they cope with the change? We are in eastern Scotland, which is relatively dry. Last winter the temperatures got down to 18 below zero centigrade and we had snow for some months, but that is unusual. More normal would be temperatures down to minus 5 centigrade and a week or two of snow. We are in a windy location, but I can keep the pots in a sheltered corner by the house. They are phillostachys glauca, phyllostachys aureosulcata f. spectabilis and phillostachys nigra. When I bought them, they were in 5 to 10 litre pots.

The alternative would be to plant them temporarily in a different spot in the garden. I don't have an in-ground sheltered spot, however.

Many thanks

Laura

Given that bamboos are propagated from divisions, the idea of digging them up and growing them in a pot temporarily is quite usual for bamboo, although some kinds resent it, that doesn't apply to any of the ones you mention. This isn't the best time of year for it, because there will be new culms forming which have not matured yet. If you could delay until at least mid August, that would be better. Spring and early autumn are the usual plant operation periods for bamboo.

In digging them up, you will lose many of the fine roots, whcih are feeding the plant. So you need to reduce the quantity of plant they have to support, either by shortening the culms or thinning them out. If you have to do it now, not later, maybe you should just get rid of all the culms whihc have shot and not matured yet, they are probably going to abort. Although given that you have just planted them recently out of fairly small pots, maybe you can get pretty much the whole plant out, fine roots and all, if you provide it with a generous rootball, and maybe they will be barely set back at all.

Especially at this time of year, make sure they are well watered and the planting medium is rich. Include a little sand in the potting medium, as bamboo takes up silica. Put them in rather bigger pots than you took them out of in the spring.

Thank you. I'll cut out the new culms and give the bamboos good big pots. I can't wait until the autumn to move them, as it's going to take husband the whole summer to fell the windbreak and the bamboos were planted in the felling area.

Should I give them any protection over winter?

Thanks again,

Laura

Your bamboos generally reckoned hardy to around about -25C in the ground. Though these temperatures are always approximate, it depends how long the cold persists and other details of the conditions. But in a pot with temperatures like you had last winter there would be a risk of the pot freezing completely through to a low temperature and killing off the roots. So in a normal winter in a reasonably large pot they are OK for temperature. But if we look like having some extended freezing weather, it is a good idea to protect potted bamboos, like put them in a shed or something for the worst of it. These bamboos are not reliably evergreen, in a sharp frost they can defoliate, black bamboo is especially prone to this (and then is slow to releaf), so don't worry too much if that happens.

You do need to keep them reasonably moist in the winter, though this is easier to say than to comply with. Curiously both drought and waterlogging can be problems with potted bamboos in the winter, the first because a frozen layer near the surface can stop water getting in, the latter because a frozen layer lower down can stop water getting out.

It sounds like I should move them into my glassed porch for the winter. They shouldn't get too cold in there - it's not heated, but doesn't freeze - and I can keep an eye on the watering.

Thanks again

Laura

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