More bamboo damage

Continuing my review of my bamboo plants and the winter damage they received, here are a few of my groundcover or "shrub" bamboos. These are plants that will most likely never get more than 2-5' tall. A garden needs balance, and these shorter plants are part of that.

This Indocalumus longiauritus looks pretty good. Has some damage on several leaves, but stayed mostly green. Pretty impressive considering the winter we had:

Indocalumus longiauritus

That one was actually two plants, and is just starting to spread now. It's also starting to push up shoots!

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Just to the right of that plant is this Sasaella masamuneana 'albostriata'. It's a beautiful bamboo. I hope it spread quite a bit last year so I can dig some more up and plant it in other parts of my yard:

Sasaella masamuneana 'albostriata'

Here's what it looks like when fresh:

Sasaella masamuneana 'albostriata'

To the right of that plant is Sasa tsuboiana, which really took some damage:

Sasa tsuboiana

That one has started shooting already (no photos yet). I'll need to decide if I'm going to chop it down, or just remove the ratty leaves. It's small enough that I can remove the leaves, but if larger I would probably prune the whole thing.

Moving to the right of the Sasa is a patch of Sasaella bitchuensis, which I started with one good-sized plant and several other small, scraggly ones. It really filled out last year, and I will probably chop most of this down because it's so ragged looking.

Sasaella bitchuensis

Maybe not -- maybe I'll be more selective. The more live leaves that are left, the more energy the plant has available to produce shoots. Of course this one is pretty vigorous, so I'm not sure how much energy I want it to have!

All of those plants were on one side of my driveway. If you move one more plant to the right from the bitchuensis you'll be at my Phyllostachys bissetii, which I showed in the previous post. On the other side of the driveway in the narrow strip between it and the house is Sasa veitchii:

Sasa veitchii

This was several (seven I think) very small plants. It's been slow to spread, so I'm really interested to see how this patch is doing when it starts shooting. The damage on these leaves is the desirable trait of this species: when it gets cold in the Fall, the leaves all wither at the edges, making them appear to be outlined in white. Quite attractive when seen on a large mass of leaves (which I don't have yet).

I've got a couple of other groundcover bamboos: Pleioblastus fortuneii and Pleioblastus viridistriatus. Both have topkilled (as expected) and need to be cut down. I need to do this soon as the fortuneii is starting to shoot I noticed yesterday.