Thanks Suzie for the link! Very interesting! Are you sure my grapes would not do well for you in CA? I believe they are good to zone 9 atleast. I ordered them from a place out that way I believe. I should have plenty left if you want to try some. I had an idea. Since my fridge is in a cut out type cabinet, I cannot really get the cuttings up there. However, I do have a heat mat that I use to germinate tomato seeds. It is a very low heat. Do you think they would be good on the heat mat? I remember when I was rooting figs for the first time (figs, my first love!), someone had suggested using a heat mat. How do you feel about this? Well, they are all wrapped in their garbage bags. Hopefully a few will make it! I did use rooting hormone on some of them. I had so many, I figured I could experiment. Well, all 3 vines are in the ground. I planted them yesterday. Hopefully they will take. I also dug up a rose bush that was at the house that my mom planted when I was a baby. I do not know how that will do. I did re-plant it here at my house, but the leaves were already limp. I wonder if roses can survive that. I also took a few cuttings from the branches, only about 4. I read to stick it in rooting hormone then into dirt with a soda bottle on top of it. They said to keep a few leaves on them, but the leaves are already pretty limp. I do not know much about roses, so I do not know if they will survive or not. That would be a shame. Although this bush is over 30 years old, it was cut way back, almost to the ground a year or so ago, so it was not as big as you would think it should be. It did have this huge, deep, long main root that I had to cut at one point since it was down so deep. Well, I will update on the grapes, and also the rose bush. thanks again for all the info! Christy

Okay, time for me to come clean...I talked about this about 2 years ago. I've done it, but it is dangerous and there are better, cheaper and faster ways to do it. Some sagely advisors from this forum tried to talk me out of it, but I didn't listen. 1. It will work...for about 30 seconds or so. It is the same thing as trying to use a chain saw to cut through rootballs of trees (which also have soil/dirt/rocks in/on them). Even a small, trace amount of dirt is enough to dull the blade. 2. Blades aren't cheap...18-28 bucks at my local HD. You are gonna go through ALOT. Dull blades are NO FUN to sharpen...takes for ever. Changing blades gets boring. 3. You are gonna burn up the saw eventually. (I burned through two of em). 4. It just ain't safe. Ever see a chainsaw kick back off a rock? Ain't pretty. Now that I am older, and perhaps wiser, I've opted for 12 inch sawzall blades. You can buy a pack of 5 at my local HD for 16 bucks or so. There are also 'slammer' shovels that I hear are very useful. I've also used a 40 lb. jackhammer with a modified clay spade (made it a reverse "v" and sharpened). Works well too, but you have to sharpen the spade every so often. but found that it was just easier to use the sawzall.

Alex, I'd suggest that you put the rootball on the floor on the front passenger side and get a culm that you can top just above a node, so that will fit up against the rear window. I think that you'll get more cane this way than what would fit in the trunk and you do not want to drive 4 hours with the culm exposed to the wind/sun. Also, save the culm parts that you have to 'top' and you may be able to make cutting from them as well.

1. 12" max 2. with runners, not much. Just identify 2 or 3 closly adjacent culms and cut them out as one rootball. 3. hurt your or hurt the rhizomes? When I cut 3 or 4 rhizomes entering/leaving a root ball of 2 culms, I heard/saw no pain from the rhizomes nor from me. 4. almost never true. 5. One method of propagating clumpers is to bury a culm, or culm segment, with the branches above ground. Runners normally don't grow from buried segments. 6. runners and clumpers are different. In general, runners won't grow from culm segments. Some clumpers are very amenable to growing from culm segments, some less so, some not at all. ================== I've successfully dug a root ball of two Ph aurea culms, seen below, and transplanted them. The new clump is going great. . ============================================= . For a clumper propagation experiment, I posted this project here in March 2005, an attempt to propagate Bambusa tuldoides from a buried culm: I sort of ignored the project until last week, except for watering, when I decided to severe the culm completely from the ground and main plant. If the individual nodes had sprouted in each pot, they the branches/leaves would stay green after losing connection to the main plant. If the nodes had spouted self-sustaining roots, the leaves would brown and die. To my surprise AND EXTREME DELIGHT, not only did all the pots that had branches/leaves that survive up to last week maintain green leaves, but one pot that had no branch/leaves at its node even sprouted a branch/leaves AFTER I cut the link to the main plant, as if the separation caused the node to awaken in self-preservation and cause the node to bud. On closer inspection, I can see through the transparent pots (40-oz polycarbonate containers from Costco fancy mixed nuts!) that there are roots in the pots, meaning I have new, independent plants propagated from one semi-buried culm. Next step is to segment the culm between the pots. I will post pics next week. Bamboo guru Roy Rogers didn't know if my "amateur" technique would work, as he had never seen it done that way. For my part, it was blind/beginner's luck. :)