Originally Posted by burris

I'm in Arkansas, Zone 7b and I've been keeping basjoo 4 years now. The first couple of years i kept them in pots. It's fall now and I've had 2 summers with them in the ground. Last winter i decided to try leaving one stem 6 feet tall and wrapping it with clear plastic wrap. The others were in the back out of site and i did not trim the leaves on them nor touch them. Plus i let them sucker and some of them have like 6 to 10 stems. This summer, the one i wrapped, was slower to take off and only grew to about 7 - 8 feet. The untouched ones in the back are much better. We had good rain all summer and they are 12 - 14 feet. I had 5 different clumps of them back there. One was shaded badly by the bamboo and it only got about waist high.