Thursday, March 10, 2011

A Hardy Clumping Bamboo

Fargesia rufa in September four years after planting.

I was getting rather skeptical that any of the clumping bamboos were actually hardy here in zone 5. Its not that I made a massive survey of them, but the cost of four or five failures over the years stung enough to make me wary. When my own organization (Kingwood Center) offered Fargesia rufa tradmarked with the name Green Panda,I had to try again. That was in 2006. The plant has survived in my garden for five winters, so I guess I have to call it hardy, although we have not had the minus fifteen or minus twenty degrees Fahrenheit we get periodically. It is difficult both mentally and financially to keep trying new and different things in the garden. Not only are the new plants more expensive than most, but their failure rate is much higher as well. Whadareyagunnado.