Florida Bamboo Forum

jason,
do you mulch heavily?

I did mulch heavily the first couple of years, but not the last 2 years. Do you mulch yours heavily? In summer and winter?

When i first planted the oldhamii I mulched it with hay and put a hoop of 2ft high welded wire fence around it. I kept it mulched pretty heavily but after about 2 years the hoop fence was getting a little small so I took it down. After that my chickens kept scratching out all the mulch looking for bugs. I put another little fence around the bamboo today though and some hay.

sometimes deep mulch covering a low culm node will cause branching below mulch level that appear to be shoots.
sometimes its shoots
just curious as to which you have.
eventually the branches may produce roots giving you a new plant. even better.
i only mulch with hay occasionally because it looks nice.

The chickens had scratched it down to bare soil so im pretty sure they are shoots. Below is a picture of some of the new bambusa oldhamii shoots.

looks like my hamiltonii
the small early shoots may be a response to the cold damage.