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Golden Goddess Hedge looking not looking so good

9 years ago

I'll try to make is as short a possible. I live in San Diego. A few months back (approx June) I planted a few golden goddess bamboos in order to divide and create a screen between my driveway and my neighbors ugly front yard. The space is about 14ft wide and receives direct sun. I bought 5 or 6 golden goddess in I believe 1-gallon pot, plants were about 3 feet tall. I split all of them except one and planted them about a foot or a foot and a half apart. The plants weren't in the best condition to begin with due to some recent hot windy weather but they were in decent shape. Since then I have watered them daily, but they just havent seemed to ever get nice and healthy looking, always having a lot of dry leaves. A couple of months after that (around August) I ended up splitting in half and filling in two gaps I had in the row wih the spare one, which had been in a terrca cotta pot since I bought it and was actually (looking nice and healthy, green and bushy not too many brown leaves). So fast forward to now and my hedge still looks pretty sorry. And for whatever reason the last one I planted which looked the healthiest when it was in a pot looks the worst ones in the row. The picture is not the best and I know it's kind of hard to tell between the bamboos and my neighbors ugly dead grass but I could really use some advice here. What am I doing wrong?? I have literally watered them everyday since I planted them with the exception of a few days (not in a row) here and there. I will try to take a better pic tomrw from a different angle so maybe it'll be easier to see. Page couple of them look ok but at least half of them look like crap!! Someone please advise. Thanks in advance!

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Comments (8)

gerry619
Original Author
9 years ago
Another pic
gerry619
Original Author
9 years ago
As you can see ones on the far right look the best. From what I recall I didn't split this one after I bought it. Should I not have split the others??
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In your last pic, the grooves would be on the side that is not visible, or above where the limbs are growing out from the culm. From all the pics you posted, I'd have to go with Bambusa multiplex 'Al Karr', and it is a clumper. The pink colored limbs in the fourth pic also are characteristic of Al Karr. I have seen bamboo for sale at Home Depot before and it was labeled wrong. Unless you purchase from a reputable bamboo nursery, then you could be getting anything, and I've even gotten incorrectly labeled plants from two different bamboo nurseries. If new shoots pop up a foot or more from the culms you have there, then you have something else than Al Karr, and probably not a clumper. Kt
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Funny that Bamboo Gardens didn't mention to you that Bambusa is a tropical genus. As a specialist they should have better information. I've never seen any species of Bambusa growing outdoors yearround here, claims that somebody has some against a wall right on the water (or whatever) do not establish that these plants are not completely unsuited for outdoor planting in nearly all situations here. Local retail nursery buyers stocking them in recent years are merely demonstrating what they don't know about buying for nurseries. The ability of such plants to survive a few nights below a certain temperature in a southern climate where it will be 60 or 70 degrees again the following week does not prove them northern hardy, where they would have to endure months of chilled soil and repeated frosts to succeed--even here in USDA 8 (if you are outside of the Cascade or Olympic Mountains you are in Zone 8, not Zone 7).
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Patris- Why would you want to cut it back? There are a few shrub bamboo that benefit from shearing in the spring and, sometimes when you dig a big field division, topping the culms may help balance out the rhizome/leaf ratio, but I wouldn't do it to a conventional bamboo of the size you describe which is already stabilized in a pot. If you're trying to force more growth, the best thing would be to get it in the ground and water, mulch, and fertilize it (since it's fall, I'd use 0-10-10 to promote rhizome growth).
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gerry619
Original Author
9 years ago
One major point I forgot to mention was that a few weeks ago I gave them a decent spraying with malathion since they were full of that black sooty looking stuff in addition to white mealy bugs. I had tried other "organic" methods but didn't seem to be doing much. I just want to know where to go next and what I'm doing wrong. Should I just trim down the ugly dry ones?? Should I rip them out with a fresh plant although that's going to cost me which I rather avoid. Any advise would be appreciated!
kudzu9
9 years ago
Those plants were too young and too small to divide. If you are going to buy bamboo in 1-gallon pots, plant them and give them a couple of years to establish themselves. Several years hence they may be ready to divide. As for your existing plants, although I hope I am wrong, I suspect that the premature dividing probably either did them in, or set them back a lot. You can cut back any parts that are dead (tan culms), and leave them in the ground and keep watering and some of them might come back, but it will be a long time before any still alive recover and size up. If you want a hedge any time soon, you will probably have to start over with new plants. Bamboo is very resilient, but dividing such small plants usually doesn't leave enough root mass to allow the divisions to survive, especially in the kind of hot weather you have been having. Sorry...

This post was edited by kudzu9 on Thu, Oct 9, 14 at 3:15
gerry619
Original Author
9 years ago
Thanks for the reply. I was afraid you were going to say that. Alright, so I might just take the ugliest (driest) ones out and replace them and keep the ones that look decent. Thanks again for the response. I also have some questions regarding some potted Alfonse Karr but I will create a separate post now that I know how easy it is to post pics. Thanks again!
gerry619
Original Author
9 years ago
So this is what they look like from nursey. So I should not split this before planting in ground?
gerry619
Original Author
9 years ago

Still not looking much better....
kudzu9
9 years ago
I know those look like they have a lot of culms, but I just have never had good luck dividing a potted bamboo that small. You might get away with it, or it might just set the individual divisions into shock, which will require quite a while to recover from.

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