I have much respect for Joe Ghio's pronouncement on the matter, but i honestly can say, that the above quote from him has not been my observation, 100% of the time. I've had 50 years to experiment with it, and I my own experience has taught me otherwise. I've consistently had some success rate in holding over old rhizomes on certain varieties. The key is that ONLY certain varieties can develop new shoot from old rhizomes, which i think i made clear from my above post.
I also grow hundreds and hundreds of cultivars like he does, but in a climate radically different from that of San Jose Ca. The climate factor may have something to do with it, im not sure. I do apologize if i made my own experience/experimentation sound authoritative -- i'll make sure to add the appropriate caveats to my technical responses in the future.
