In summer 2004 I put in some nice Yellow Groove and Golden Goddess--three five-gallon containers of each, purchased from Bamboo Gardens in Redmond, Washington. The Yellow Groove is flourishing. Planted in what becomes the shade (six months a year) of a big neighboring maple, I am told that it will not reach "full height," but it's so far doing what we wanted it to do.

The Golden Goddess is another matter. I think it is Golden Goddess anyway: That's what the tag on the plant says, though when I go looking for pictures on the web in order to confirm this, I sure see wildly different looking bamboo identified and sold as Golden Goddess.

Spring and summer, these three Golden Goddess plants get a couple of hours of dappled sun in the morning, then two-three hours of shade, then four-six hours of direct sun late in the day. (Though this is Seattle basically, and you really have to qualify "direct sun"!)

First two summers these plants did great, but now they've taken on a really ratty look. Not a lot of leaf fall, but lots of culms with the top one-third dead; and lots of curled, dried, dead-looking leaves. Not a lot of new growth either.

They don't appear to be beset by pests. Winter was not really hard here, though there was one late, relatively hard (high teens-low 20's??) freeze.

Any other Golden Goddess folk out there in a similar climate who could cheer me up as to what might be going on here?

(A phone call to Bamboo Gardens got me the suggestion that these plants don't tolerate sun well--which contradicts both what they told me when I bought them and what you find all over the internet).