Taking down the greenhouse for spring 2013

This year, spring came kind of late, but this weekend, it is finally in the 60s with a forecast that looks OK. I decided to take off the greenhouse that has been up since 23 September of last year. These plants have been under a greenhouse for 6 1/2 months, but they are still looking pretty good. I keep mostly bamboos in this thing.

It took about an hour to move all the stuff out and clean up the area.

The greenhouse was destroyed under the weight of the snow last winter, but that didn't seem to faze the plants. Since there were 4 (55 gallon drums), a shorter greenhouse insulated even better.

I could probably use the same metal pipes to set up the greenhouse again, but it would take less time build a more durable frame than try to re-inforce these skinny hollow pipes.

After I removed all the pipes and pots away, I left the barrels in place, and attached the reflector so my plyllostachys edulis "moso" bicolor can capture more light which is very meaningful as we are getting longer daylight hours. This is just an attempt to maximize the photosynthesis.

I added a nice layer of horse manure and gave it a good watering so the roots can really get going.

This whip shoots was around last fall and survived through the winter being inside the greenhouse. It should activate or abort in about a month depending on the weather.

Here is a view of the whole area which used to be the greenhouse before I cleaned it up completely.

The main prominens division looks very healthy. 

Another prominens is looking stressed, but it may recover with warmer temperatures, and natural outdoor conditions.

Fargesia robusta shot while it was inside the greenhouse, but it should shoot again some time this year as this shoot already looks like it has reached full height.

One of my vivas huangwenzhu inversas is looking pretty good while the other one died likely due to not enough rhizome mass.

The only thing that looks very sad is the bambusa ventricosas. the lowest it got in the greenhouse last winter was 17-18F which is too cold for tropicals, but they may bounce back.