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Borinda fungosa update 2016
This growing season, Borinda fungosa seedling was 5 years old. Like during it’s previous seasons, it started shooting late in the spring and managed only to push out a couple of shoots that were about the size of last year’s growth.
We’ve had relatively mild winter last year. Since there was not enough snow, to protect the bamboo, like year before, there was some damage. Most of the late summer shoots have been defoliated completely, fresh branches died off, but the culms remained alive. Most of the unbranched nodes restarted by mid spring. This year, one of late autumn shoots actually remained alive and started growing when soil temperature got high enough.
The shooting season began early, because one 3cm tall shoot from previous autumn managed to survive the winter. As usual, spring shots are roughly the same size as large shoots from previous year. With a bit more damage than usual, seedling lost at least 6 fully grown culms during the winter. Winter damage is probably the main cause of smaller upsize this year and very bad spring shooting cycle. The late summer / autumn shooting, however, ended up “heavier” than ever. Shoots are not much larger, but they really came out in great numbers this year.
The summer was quite dry, with abundance of sun and mild summer temperatures that never reached more than 33°C. Night temperatures also remained below 20°C most of the time. Leaves remained healthy and green throughout the whole summer. I was watering it occasionally, especially when the weather remained dry for longer periods of time in late summer. Borinda fungosa is supposed to look bad in warm and dry weather, but it seems that with maturity, the plant became resilient enough to withstand strong, full sun exposure. Seedling behaved differently from any of my bamboos from the early beginning. The shooting is usually completed in about 2 months. Not the case with my Borinda. Shoots are maturing throughout the whole season, and only the earliest shoots manage to harden off completely before the winter cold destroys all the branches that are still soft. During summer, it looks healthy, but it’s growth slows down considerably. With cooler weather in late summer it starts growing faster and doesn’t stop until hard frosts kick in.
So far the vigor and overall appearance of Borinda fungosa seedling is surprisingly good. Due to the fact, that it grows in marginal climate with cold winters and (too?) warm summers, it grows extremely well. It survived cold, drought, heat, got infested with insects, rodents,… It grows faster than all of my Phyllostachys seedlings, including my vigorous Phyllostachys pubescens ‘Moso’.
Quick update on 3 variegated P. arcana ‘Luteosulcata’ seedlings
I’ve already been writing about possible variegated seedlings from the second batch of seedlings. The variegated seedling from the test germination of 10 seeds remains my most variegated Phyllostachys arcana ‘Luteosulcata’ seedling. The other 3 possible variegated seedlings still show signs of variegation, but they are far smaller and variegation can not be confirmed. The seedlings in the second batch were sown tightly and became weak as they started to grow larger. I failed to plant them into individual pots on time and I’ve lost some of the seedlings that started drying out due to lack of light and water. One of the most affected was the second most variegated seedling that refused to start shooting even when other seedlings started to put out their second shoot.
I found it completely dried out and it seemed to be lost, with only 3 remaining leaves, that were also folded all the time, except during night, early morning and rainy weather. I decided to plant it into compost in the raised bed together with other two variegated seedlings and hope for the best. After almost two months, it somewhat recovered and now it’s pushing two small shoots that prove it’s going to live.
The third seedling, the one that was dark green with white variegation, looking as inverse version of the first seedling is growing into almost completely green seedling. It’s growing slowly and it changed variegation along the way into white stripe on dark green leaf, similar to Phyllostachys aureosulcata ‘Spectabilis’, but that faded out too. It will be interesting to see if it returns or not. By planting it outside, it should grow fast enough to discover its possible unique features further.
Phyllostachys arcana ‘Luteosulcata’ seedlings at 5 months
First couple of Phyllostachys arcana ‘Luteosulcata’ seedlings are now 5 months old. They grow fast and perhaps started showing some of their growth characteristics. Most of them are low and bushy, but two of them started to have much taller appearance with less branches and perhaps a bit longer internodes. Soil, fertilizing / watering cycle and light intensity are the same, which should eliminate possible environmental differences. The soil mix was made in the same bucket, but there could always be slight content difference.
All the seedlings have started showing signs of nutrient deficiency with yellow stripes on their newly grown leaves. I started introducing them to diluted liquid fertilizer which somewhat helped with the issue, but not entirely eliminated it. Water consumption of the fastest growing seedling is unbelievably high. I water them once daily and always leave some of the water in the bottom container, which allows roots to get the water from there as well. If I only skip one day, I get curled-up bamboo, with completely dried out substrate. I early lost two large seedlings, which are still recovering.
Currently, the largest seedling is also the tallest one. At one point this seedling started growing tall shoots with culm diameter comparable to other seedlings that were only half it’s height and enormous leaves (again – large for it’s size and age). Most of the seedlings are now 20 cm tall and the tallest one is over 40 cm. Largest leaves are up to 15 cm long with yellow striping that indicate nutrient deficiency, which is most likely caused by very fast growth in a rather small container.
The large seedling started pushing out 14 new shoots that are all eager to turn back into the soil. The shoots are growing into all directions and they certainly look like whip shoots to me. If rhizome growth actually started, it would explain the lifted soil that is getting pushed upwards almost daily. I will need to up-pot the seedlings before they get completely root bound. Heavy thirst drains water from the soil in about a day, which means any neglect would result in loosing the seedlings.
There are no signs of either leaf nor culm variegations on any of the Phyllostachys arcana ‘Luteosulcata’ seedlings from that batch, except for the highly variegated one, which is growing slowly and often shows signs of stress. Its first couple of leaves on young culms seem to be the palest, sometimes almost completely yellow, those leaves are extremely susceptible to drying of leaf tips. Issue might also be caused by unnaturally strong grow light and will disappear when I plant it outside. The second batch of seedlings seem to have given another two variegated seedlings, one has the same kind of variegation as the one mentioned above, but is at least 30% greener and should have faster and more healthy growth. The second one is even darker green and might be inverse version of those two yellowish seedlings – this one shows yellow variegation on green leaf.
