I would like to transplant a bed of bamboo from the Chilliwack River Valley to Shawnigan Lake on Vancouver Island. My prime concern at the moment is more related to the transport, as what I have available would require a heavy pruning. At the moment the culms are about 12 feet tall. Can I prune them back to 3-4 feet so that they fit in a van?
Assuming it's a Phyllostachys, go ahead. Just make sure to get as much rhizome and rootball as you can manage--you could divide it down to sections of a few nodes each, but a larger clump will regenerate faster, and should send out new shoots in the Spring. Don't let the rootball dry out during transport, wrap it in a damp cloth inside a tarp.
Thank you for your informative and quick reply. I don't know how to distinguish Phyllostachys from other genera. Are there other genera where this approach would not be advisable? My sense is that bamboo plants that are not within the Phyllostachys genus would be rare. Do I have that right?
More caution (and preferably Spring transplanting) would be required for a lot of the clumping bamboos, with some being more finicky than others. And yeah, I assumed Phyllostachys because it accounts for most of the running bamboo you see in the region. Quickest way to tell would be to look for the sulcus, an obvious indented groove that runs the length of each section of culm. This is characteristic of Phyllostachys. Species-wise, could be one of a number of hardy kinds that are being grown, aurea and vivax seem to be the most common. The main non-Phyllostachys running type you'll find a lot of locally is Psuedosasa japonica, which has a distinct look and can be easily ID'd with an image search.
Thanks again, I will look for the sulcus and do an image search for the Psuedosasa japonica. Can I safely take it that non-clumping bamboos would be okay to transplant this way at this point in time?
Ideally, Spring is the best time to divide, but if you have to move it now then yes, it should be fine--just try to get as much root mass as you can.
Okay, I am set to cut them down to 3-4 feet in height and divide the root mass into large chunks. I spoke to a nursery worker today that said that bamboo is deciduous and should not be pruned heavily, quoting the 1/3 pruning maximum rule. She went on to say that if it is black bamboo, to not prune it at all. This appears to go against your advice and what others have written. I guess my question now is, is there any advantage for the root mass in having the culms attached to the root ball? At 3-4 feet, there won't be many stems and leaves. Could it be that the culms would pretty much only serve as handles during the process?
I think the nursery worker simply gave you the standard issue, generic but safe advice for pruning/transplanting, without particular knowledge of bamboo--no idea why she would single out black bamboo, as it's no different than any other Phyllostachys in terms of division, etc. It's always nice to leave as much culm as you can for aesthetic reasons and energy production, but in my experience there's typically enough stored energy in a goodly chunk of rhizome to push up new shoots in the Spring--I've moved large pieces that have had all the culms removed and they all came back during shooting season. Try to leave a few leaves (cut back to a node with branches if possible) if you can. Careful when you're moving a large division, if you're using the culm stubs as handles: if you torque them too hard, you can detach the culm base from the rhizome and damage the division...but mainly, if it's a Phyllostachys, you're dealing with a fairly tough bamboo that will often re-sprout from a tiny section of rhizome, so a good sized division with dirt and hair roots (mostly) intact, immediately re-planted/potted and not allowed to dry out ought to come back over time.
Most bamboos are evergreen woody grasses. There is confusion between these and certain large weedy knot-weeds (Fallopia syn. Polygonum or Reynoutria) which produce large, jointed yet herbaceous stems bearing broad leaves. Otherwise I cannot imagine why it would be stated that bamboos were deciduous.
