Forgotten, the second

The other day I wrote about my forgotten and frozen jasmine. At the same time I noticed the jasmine was still outside, I turned to the right and noticed that I had a large potted bamboo still unprotected:

I was supposed to have included this plant with the other bamboos that I laid down on the ground and covered over with plastic, but somehow I completely forgot it -- even though I look at it every day as I go into the garage.

***

I definitely want to give this plant (Bashania fargesii) protection again this year, as it's such a nice bamboo:

I also want to see how it will size up in the spring. I got it in November 2008, and it looked like this:

After spending that winter in the ground (protected under an overturned pot), it produced some nice new growth and looked like this:

Last year it spent the winter in the greenhouse, and sized up quite a bit this spring:

As you can see from the progression of size increases, I'm excited about next year. Since it's marginally cold-hardy here, I need to protect it though, so what to do? I certainly wasn't going to pull up the plastic from the horizontal plants, as that was a lot of work:

There's no room left in the greenhouse either, and this plant is too tall to fit in there anyway.

I'm thinking that under the deck is the only possible spot for it:

I don't relish the thought of digging right now, but I'm pretty sure I can bury the pot here:

After thinking about it a little more, I realized that I had no other options, so dug a big hole and dropped the plant into it:

It looks pretty nice there!

Next I just need to wrap it in plastic for wind protection:

It won't get any sunlight here so no solar heat will be trapped by the plastic, but it should be warmer right next to the house. I think this is a pretty well-protected spot, and the plant should be fine here.

There's nothing more I can do now except wait for spring and hope the winter isn't too fiercely cold. That's actually a pretty nice feeling.

(I took one last look around and there were no more bamboo pots hiding anywhere.)