Question for Harvesters

[cngodles]

Hello all,

I've got a 3rd year planting that has five 10 foot long rhyzomes running under a deck. They are in super soft under-the-deck soil and are easy to extract. There are 45 different shoots involved and I would like to dig them up so that I could pot them.

Has anyone heard about the planting suffering any kind of shock when you remove rhyzomes from other parts of the plant? I would assume that the entire planting has at least 8-10 rhyzome runners and I would be removing 4-5 of them. The shoots that I want to keep and not slow their growth are on different runners going in a different direction than the planting.

Anyone have any experience in this?

[sasa fool]

2 thoughts, you could let the ones under the deck finish off and then in late August dig them out and transplant, pot etc. Or if you just want to get rid of them now I'd leave the rhizome alone but go ahead and chop off those shoots with whatever you can hack at them with.

Right now I have 3 Spectabilis shoots under a porch, one is over an inch in diameter and already bending severely upon contact with the porch 5 feet above. I plan on trying to dig them out later this year.

Bamboo often reacts to having its rhizomes messed with, it will often start throwing little shoots when dug so I think I'd leave the rhizomes alone for several weeks yet. By culling the deck shoots but leaving the rhizomes alone you may have better luck with the shoots you wish to keep. I have a number of plantings this year that are 4 years plus, I do not want them to establish new culms any farther than they already have so I cull all shoots that are smaller than the largest ones, intending to provide more energy for the shoots I wish to keep.

[cngodles]

Not sure if I mentioned this, but I did remove 5 feet of one of them. I split it in half and potted them both.

I'll wait now for the rest on your advice. I'll also start to remove some of the younger shoots. Do you think I should remove the shoots below the deck so the other shoots receive more energy? There are literally 45 of them, pretty densely packed.

Also, really enjoyed your website!