Protecting bamboo during the winter
Most of temperate bamboos are quite cold hardy, but there are exceptions and every plant’s cold hardiness has its limits. To prevent damage during the cold months of winter, it’s often best to offer your plants at least some protection to prevent loosing your bamboo.
Most common causes of winter damage
Beside the cold itself, sometimes there are other causes of winter damage. In late fall, bamboos go through a preparation period in which their cold hardiness improves considerably. Their growth and transpiration halts to a minimum, some can even shed some of their leaves. When soil is cold, sometimes even frozen, water mobility from roots towards the leaves is extremely difficult process which can even completely stop if the soil or any part of bamboo culm gets completely frozen. At that point, each additional leaf that requires water, means that the plant loses more water than it can replenish. It is also good Idea to mulch the soil around the bamboo with layer of dry leaves, grass or wood shavings. Mulch does attract rodents, which can sometimes cause more damage than the mulch prevents. If you fertilize in late autumn, there is a possibility that bamboo fails to enter the winter preparation and continues to actively grow. During growth it’s much more delicate and can be damaged by either drought, heat or cold. Plants that were already stressed during previous growing season are often more prone to cold damage.
How cold is too cold?
There’s no answer to that one. Cold damages plants, but it usually doesn’t “work” alone. If it’s cold and the weather is overcast or if there’s fog and no wind, there will be much less damage, compared to clear sunny windy and frigid day. Wind can dry out even the most prepared leaves that are coated with thick layer of wax. Sun warms up the dark green foliage that heats up readily, transpiration rate goes up and the roots can’t supply enough water. When you combine all three, cold, sun and wind, the effect is by far the worst. I’ve lost several bamboos in those conditions.
Piled-up snow – best winter protection
When snow falls over bamboo, it will easily bend and soon, snow covers the bamboo completely. That is bamboo’s natural defense against winter extremes and it works extremely well. If there is at least some snow before the cold hits, it’s best you use it! By tarping the bamboo down to the ground, it is easier to cover it with snow. I usually just shovel up a pile of snow over it, and hope enough snow falls before the bitter cold arrives. Tarping bamboo to the ground is necessary when the plant gets larger, but usually gets impossible as the plant matures. Snow covered bamboo makes the air around bamboo leaves warmer than the air above, regulates moisture and prevents desiccation. It is also dark and keeps only minimal transpiration.
All the snow covered bamboos survived the cold blast completely intact. Soil did not freeze under snow insulation and my protected bamboos only suffered minor culm and branch breakage. The much taller and robust bamboo culms that remained exposed got damaged. My Moso seedling that got drought and heat stressed during the summer is going to show substantial winter damage. Tender Phyllostachys aurea is fried up to 50% and Phyllostachys aureosulcata ‘Spectabilis’ (Lamatempel) with no damage whatsoever. All my smaller other bamboos got protected by themselves – snow laid them flat and since the snow cover got thick enough, they remained safe during the severe winter weather with temperatures down to -16°C and powerful dry wind.
