I decided to overwinter a clump of fargesia rufa last fall by mulching it with straw and by ensuring that it remained covered with snow all winter (it's by my front walk). When I uncovered it in April, the bottom half still had green leaves, but these withered away and browned after a series of fairly hard freezes in the middle of the month. I then cut the stems to the ground as it appeared they'd all died off...and then waited. I thought the roots had survived, and today was rewarded by the sight of new leaves! Last winter was fairly mild (although temps did drop regularly to -30 to -32 in January), so it'll be interesting to see if I can get this to survive another winter.

Lessons learned:

-I uncovered the bamboo MUCH too early in the season. Had I waited another two to three weeks, I probably could have saved some of last year's growth.

-f. rusa apparently likes to be covered with snow for the entire winter.

-don't panic! No new growth until early June, which places this species last in my yard to spring up/leaf out along with my ginkgo, black locust, and Jerusalem Artichoke.