Hello everyone, I would like some opinions about something, please. I am an experienced gardener, but not experienced in bamboos. I bought a large Fargesia nitida Stream Cottage in 2021. It then proceeded to bloom in 2022. I am coaxing the little bit that is left of the main plant to grow, and it seems to be cooperating slowly so far. There are also a few seedlings that have come up around the parent plant. They are not root sprouts, but seedlings with their own root systems. They are an inch to two inches tall now.
My question is should I dig them up and protect them for at least this first winter, or do bamboos prefer to tough it out? It snows here on the Coast range in Oregon, and can get down to 16 degrees. I have a minimally heated greenhouse with lighting where they can spend the winter if that would be best. I really don't want to lose them.

Frankly, I paid a lot for the parent, and am not happy that it is barely alive. So if I can do anything to help the seedlings live, I will.

My instinct is that since they are tiny baby plants, they would benefit from a little help until they gain some size. But as I say, I am not well versed in bamboo care, so if someone has a better idea, I would love to hear it.

Thank you in advance for any help you can give with this matter.

I'm not real experienced with bamboo either but I would dig them up and overwinter them in your greenhouse, just to give them a boost.

I do grow bamboo and I have never seen one bloom! According to the data, this species bloomed in the few years on either side of 2010 - your bamboo was slow to catch up. Sometimes the parent survives the bloom adventure so don't give up. Also, if the baby bamboos are where you want them, leave them to grow. It takes awhile to 'recover' from being transplanted. Fargesia nitida is one of the hardiest of the cold hardy bamboos, able to withstand below 0 temperatures (-10F to -15F) with ease.

Thank you so much, Cal Poly (from one Mustang to another!), that was my first thought.

Lucy; you have given me another thought, I did not realize they were that cold hardy, or that sensitive to being moved. When I think of bamboo, I tend to think they are tough as nails, but living here has taught me otherwise about a lot of plants that I thought that of! And it sounds like you know better about bamboos.

I guess now I will need to flip a coin, or pot up some, and leave others, and see who fares the best. I really would like all of them to survive if I can manage it.

Although we don't have a database listing for a cultivar named 'Stream Cottage', Blue Fountain Bamboo (Fargesia nitida) is listed as hardy in zones 5-9, so I'd think they would be okay left in the ground in your zone 8.

Hi Lin, I have tried finding this variety name myself, and have come up empty. You know how that is, someone may have made it up along the line somewhere just because they liked the sound of it.
I'm not worried about the parent so much as the tiny babies.
Thank you for your input.

I even grew Fargesia nitida up here in zone 4 for six years before it bloomed with all the others across the world. (Actually, with my short growing season, it never actually bloomed, but had unopened flower heads.) The next year it came back feebly, and died the ensuing winter.

I've never been able to successfully transplant anything smaller than a 5 stem clump.

I have pretty much zero knowledge about growing bamboo, but maybe covering your plants with some "floating row cover" for the winter, using something to support it so it isn't lying right on the plants themselves, would be a better option than digging them up?

Erin, I'm a Bronco not a Mustang. But that's okay, you're just SLO!

Computer delays!
I don't know, Rick, it sounds like they are somewhat particular, but cold hardy.
Sandy, I think that is a good idea. Perhaps a wire hat with row cover to shield them from the crushing snow.

As for you, John, you gave me a good giggle. Nice one. I may be SLO, but we are sort of from the same barn? Poly all? But I did not get to see the beautiful Arabians. Sad.

You have snow? It gets to the mid teens a couple times a winter but it has never ever snowed.

Oh, yes, Lucy, we have snow. We searched for two years to find a retirement spot. Wanted to leave the heat of Bakersfield. Wanted water. Wanted out of town, on a dead end road (which turned out to be a bad idea!), forest sounded nice. Researched all of the past weather data I could find. This valley, Camas Valley, got an average of one inch of snow a year, according to data. We have been here six years now, and twice have had over three feet on the ground. And a lot in the other years. The people that live around here say they have never seen it like this.

And the summer water has pretty much dried up. This year had three months with no rain to speak of. The Douglas firs are dying because of it, as they apparently like water all year, as it used to be.

I believe I am in the coldest, wettest corner of Camas Valley. It is consistently five degrees warmer on the other edge of this valley. Being at 1168 feet does not help any. It turns out that if we were just on the other side of the mountain range inland, the weather would be on average ten degrees warmer. It is just enough to let most of the plants I would like to grow live. I would do a lot for those ten degrees!

So it has turned into more of a headache than a retirement. But it is beautiful, and the wild turkeys are amusing. Have you ever seen a group of turkey girls chase each other around in a circle with their tails fanned out, cocked sideways like sails? So silly. I had no idea they made up their own games.

Sorry to drone on. Gardening-wise I am learning what will live and not in this climate. In Bakersfield I had a three year old yellow tomato that was in the ground. It just didn't freeze. At Cal Poly SLO I learned hundreds of plants and their traits. But that climate is far different from this, so not much help. Here I round up everything I care about in fall and we all spend six or seven months trying not to freeze! lol Most definitely a learning experience.

I won't bore you any more, but oh, yes, Lucy, we get snow.

I reread that, and it sounds like one big whine. I am sorry for that. I do realize that there are a lot colder, tougher places to garden than this. It just isn't what I expected, or planned for, or am used to. lol I'm from LA originally, so having actual seasons is a real difference. The whole experience has knocked me sort of sideways.

Thank you all for your ideas and thoughts. I really do appreciate your help.

I enjoyed your 'rant'. I'm just fastinated by how different your zone 8 and my zone 8 are. I've always wanted to live in a place where I could grow a tulip - is your zone 8 cold enough? Or maybe its the heat that gets them?

@wavymouse2 I didn't consider your post as whining. I relocated from Sonoma County, CA to New Mexico more than a decade ago, and I still miss west coast gardening. Everything was so easy there and is so radically different and difficult here — air, sun, soil, water, seasons — that I had to unlearn decades of solid gardening knowledge and start again from scratch. There are many qualities here that I do enjoy and at least I didn't have the hopeful expectations that you had; still, after a certain point in life one simply longs for the familiar.

Yes, Lucy, it is cold enough to grow tulips here. They even come back year to year, in spite of what we are told (as long as something doesn't eat them). That is why I should not be whining at all; the flip side of my not being able to grow my old favorites is that I have tulips, peonies, hostas, heucheras, apples, all sorts of things that struggle where it is a bit warmer because they don't get the real winter chill that they need. I think the altitude helps with that. We are not really high, but high enough to take note of the cake box when it gives you an adjustment for altitude lol Never had to do that before.
And there are wild daffodils all over. Even along the freeway. Who knew?

Cool! A chance to make a whole new set of favorites. I would love it! New challenges and new plants. You moved for a change. Embrace it and have some fun.

Oh, Zoe, you are saying exactly what I feel. Such a major shift in gardening methods is a real wrench. Even the sun is different here. There is no smog, so when you are outside any time the sun is out, it is so intense it can be blinding. Definitely not Bakersfield, which has the second worst air in the nation.
I have always been a country girl at heart, give me dirt over concrete any time. But one of my biggest challenges has been the wildlife. I expected the deer, but this particular variety, Columbia Black Tail, try to go UNDER fences as much as over. It involves a whole different type of reinforcing. There are mice, rats, pack rats, moles, ground squirrels, Douglas' squirrels, grey squirrels, opossums, skunks, jackrabbits, brush bunnies, turkeys, Steller's jays, and elk. All of which want to mess with my plants and either eat them or dig them up. Not to mention the insects, which there are more of than I have ever seen. Inch long ants. Bleah. The photo on my profile is of two teenage boy elk that came with their family of about fifteen to check out my Japanese maples. Reached right over the fence that the deer respect. Luckily they listened when I told them to go away. No bear problems so far, though I saw one not far away.
I know what you mean about differences. At home I just put things in the ground, and as long as I remembered to water them, with a few exceptions, they would grow. Roses, Iris, tomatoes, just about anything you could want. Here, it is too cold. Then too hot, then too dry, then too wet. Then covered with snow for a week or two. Then someone takes it away completely, and you can't figure out where it went.

I don't know that I will ever get used to everything dying back to nothing in winter. I have to mark everything so that I have some idea what is supposed to be where, maybe, if it makes it through.

And I do long for the familiar. Sounds odd, but I miss the Santa Ana winds in fall. And I do seriously miss Eucalyptus trees. And mockingbirds. Here there are bald eagles and golden eagles, and there are hawks living in my forest. And owls. And the silly turkeys. But no mockingbirds.

I enjoy my peace and quiet- most of the time it is so quiet here you can hear a pin drop, but it would be nice to have it easy, as you said, to do what I KNOW will work, and actually have it work. To just plant something and not have to barricade it above and below ground just so it has a chance.
On the quiet note- did you ever notice that you can hear a crow fly overhead because their wings make noise? Other birds, no, but you can hear crows. I never knew that.
Thank you for sharing with me.

Thank you, Lucy, that is what I am attempting to do. It is very cool living here when there are no problems. lol I have started from scratch. The people that lived here did not garden at all, so it it pretty much wild. I am chewing my little bit of cultivated space out of the open space by the forest.
One of the best parts has been discovering the wild things. Besides the beasties, there are fairy slipper and rattlesnake orchids in the forest in April. And trilliums, shooting stars, wild iris, and fittingly, camassias. Luckily there is enough land that I do not have to worry about those plants being disturbed, they can live as they always have. I am only making the garden behind the house, the forest is beyond. It is nice to take a stroll through and look at all of the wild things.
You are right, if I spend all of my time bemoaning the misinformation I received, I would not enjoy this little jewel of a world right here. I mean, I have my own private forest. With wildlife. How many have that? I do enjoy it, I just get overwhelmed sometimes with the problems.
Thank you for your note of encouragement. It helps.

wavymouse2 said: I bought a large Fargesia nitida Stream Cottage in 2021. It then proceeded to bloom in 2022.

The good news- should your seedlings make it-they likely will not bloom again in your lifetime!

https://www.bamboogarden.com/b...

This is probably one of the most reliable bamboo info sources on the net, and the link above describes your bamboo and its history and flowering- and how the same family name ends up with various variety names- but still likely sharing the same DNA and thus the same 'bloom & doom' timer.

Worth a few minutes of your time!
FWIW. I grew three varieties until I killed one with kindness. BAMBOO FOLLOWS NO GARDENING RULES.
I'd say leave the seedlings where they sprouted, and let them fend for themselves through winter, and hope for the best.