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Watering & Tending to Your Bamboo Plant Correctly

By Michael Russell

The big advantage that bamboos have over other garden plants is that they can be planted at any time of the year in areas with mild to warm climates. In the colder parts of the world, they are usually planted outdoors so they can harden off sufficiently before they face their first winter.

If you plant bamboo planted late in the year, you should mulch the plant heavily. You should also provide the plant with protection from cold and drying winds. Successful growers in colder countries usually protect their bamboo plants with a heavy mulch through the winter. In extremely cold climates, a mature bamboo grove with an efficient layer of bamboo leaves covering their base will yield soft soil even when the surrounding soils are frozen hard.

If your bamboo species spreads underground, you must install a barrier to control the spread of running bamboo before it gets out of hand. For most situations a barrier of 30 inches deep is recommended. In other than very light soils the bamboo rhizomes are usually in the top few inches of soil. However, when the bamboo rhizome bumps into an barrier, it will turn and sometimes it will go down. So it is very important to keep the soil tight and compact on the base of the bamboo, as well as eliminate air pockets next to the barrier so the bamboo does not creep any deeper than you want. If you need to add more soil, simply add soil on the top. You must prevent deep rhizome growth to contain the bamboo effectively. It's also good to surround the plant with a shallow trench 8 to 10 inches deep--this is a cheaper and easier method. You will simply need to check a couple of times in the summer and autumn if any rhizomes have tried to reach across the trench. These can then be cut off easily and extra bamboo growth can be contained.

Freshly planted bamboos do need frequent and generous watering. You should water the bamboo twice a week during mild weather and daily during hot and windy weather. It is recommended that each plant under 5 gallon pot size gets a gallon of water and for bigger bamboos, more than 1 gallon will be necessary. Once your bamboo plant has reached the mature size, it will survive with much less water, but until then, a lot of water and fertilizer is necessary to achieve the best possible growth. It is actually the lack of water, especially in the summer that is the leading cause of death or poor growth of new bamboo plants. The reverse is also true: if you give too much water to newly planted bamboos daily, or for longer than a few minutes, the leaves will drop. Older and more mature bamboos can take a lot of water but freshly planted ones can suffer from too much as well as too little water.

When spring arrives, you will notice that there will be a significant yellowing of the leaves, after which the leaves shed off. Don't panic, leaf shedding is natural and should not cause concern because bamboos remain evergreen and renew their leaves in the spring. They have to lose their leaves gradually so they can be replaced by fresh new ones. If you care for your bamboo well, a healthy bamboo plant will have green leaves most of the year and yellow leaves in the spring.

Michael Russell Your Independent guide to Bamboo.

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