Care Sheet Needmore Bamboo


	Needmore Bamboo Co.


		Caring for your new Bamboo Plant We sell both container-grown plants and new field divisions of bamboo. Our container-grown plants are either rhizome propagules or field divisions that have been grown in their container for at least 1 year. All of our field divisions have been monitored for at least 30 days prior to offering the bamboo to our customers to ensure that they remain healthy plants. In order to get your new plants off to a good start we’d like to offer the following care suggestions. Receiving your delivery Always unpack/unload your new bamboo plants in the shade and water them as soon as you get them unpacked. Soak the root ball thoroughly and give the foliage a spray as well. They really enjoy being sprayed with the hose! Although our plants have been stabilized, hardened off and exposed to sunlight, we suggest keeping them in the shade in their container for the first few days before planting them. If you have already prepared the planting site and are committed to providing some TLC for the first few weeks, it is fine to go ahead with your planting. See our planting tips in the section Planting Your Bamboo. Initial Care You have purchased a healthy & viable bamboo plant and the best way to ensure that the bamboo gets off to a good start is to make sure that the plant receives adequate watering. We suggest that you water your new bamboo every day for the first week and every other day for the second week. After the initial couple of weeks, you should care for bamboo as you would any other landscape ornamental by watering deeply at least once a week. Bamboo appreciates a thorough, deep soaking more than a drip style watering but it also needs to dry out somewhat between waterings, so be careful not to over water. As an additional step to help your new bamboo plant to become established, we suggest that you monitor the condition of the bamboo leaves and be prepared to offer temporary shade if needed. When exposed to full sunlight it is normal for your bamboo to curl its leaves up tightly to minimize the amount of surface area that is exposed to the sun, thus conserving moisture. However, if the leaves remain curled even when the hot sun is not bearing down on them, this is the bamboo’s way of communicating that they are stressed and in need of a thorough watering and possibly some temporary shade. If you really want to ease your bamboo into its new environment, you might consider protecting it from the hot afternoon sun by temporarily placing a shade tent over the plant, although this step is usually only necessary in extremely hot weather. In the unlikely event that your bamboo curls its leaves even in shade and when adequately watered, it may be necessary to reduce the height of the culm and to remove some of the branches to reestablish the proper rhizome to foliage ratio. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions or concerns about your new bamboo plant. It is very important to us that you have a ‘happy’ bamboo experience! Planting Your Bamboo Site Selection – Bamboo loves to be watered but it does not want to live in water! Seasonally wet planting sites should be fine, but bamboo will not prosper in a site that is usually wet or in heavy clay soils that hold water for long periods of time. In general, most bamboos appreciate a soil that has a mix of clay and enough organic material to keep the soil light & loamy. In a broad sense - broad because full sun in Seattle is not the same as full sun in Phoenix - most timber bamboos prefer full sun while the shrub & dwarf varieties prefer shadier sites. With few exceptions, bamboos with variegated leaves need to be planted where they will not receive direct sunlight. Having said this, bamboo is a remarkably resilient plant and you can plant the timber varieties in shady sites and you can plant the shrubs & dwarfs in sunny locations. If at all possible, it is ideal to select planting sites that do not receive full winter sun nor are exposed to winter winds. Be sure to inquire as to the ideal light needs of the varieties that you have selected. Another consideration in making the appropriate site selection is the expected shooting season of the variety of bamboo that you have selected. Bamboo needs a full 3 months from the time that the new shoots appear until the first frost is expected in order for the new culms to harden off and to ensure adequate root development. Therefore, varieties that are known to be late season shooters should be planted in locations that will warm up earliest in the spring – usually south facing sites. Conversely, varieties of bamboo that are early season shooters should be planted in sites that are slower to warm up in order to push back their shooting period in order to avoid late season frosts, which can damage or kill new shoots. Be sure to inquire as to the expected shooting period for the variety that you have selected. Time to plant! – You may plant your new bamboo in a variety of ways such as a hole, a trench, a raised bed, or a container. Bamboo is more forgiving than most plants in terms of how deeply it is planted compared to how deep it had previously been growing, but in general plant it as you would plant a tree. Dig a hole the same depth as the root ball and twice as wide. We suggest backfilling the hole with a nice potting soil mix or other organic loamy soil in order to provide a nice environment for new roots to grow. Do not add fertilizer to the planting hole and be very careful using any manure other than well-rotted manure. We strongly advise against using the cheap-bagged top soil sold at most garden centers. It does not drain well and ‘sets up’ like concrete. Be sure that you use something with vermiculite or another material that loosens the soil. It is not necessary to amend the soil outside of the planting area unless it is unusually heavy or hardpan soil, in which case you may wish to consider a different planting site or a raised bed for your bamboo. Be sure to water the air pockets out of the planting hole prior to completely backfilling. Water thoroughly and mulch for added moisture retention. You can use a wide variety of materials for mulching but we have found that voles are attracted to leaf mulches and they will eat your bamboo rhizomes underground! Routine Care Once your bamboo becomes well established it is a relatively low-maintenance plant in terms of its care requirements. By far the most important thing that you can do is to ensure an adequate year-round supply of water for you bamboo. Water is more important than supplemental fertilizers so be sure to provide plenty during the hot summer days. The ideal feeding cycle is once about a month before the onset of shooting season, and again at the end of the shooting period, which is just prior to the beginning of the active rhizome growth cycle. New plantings should be fertilized using a diluted water soluble food. We suggest using a balanced fertilizer such as a 12-12-12 or a water-soluble food like Peters 20-20-20. Do not feed your bamboo any fertilizer containing nitrogen after the beginning of August! The addition of nitrogen late in the fall increases the likelihood of damage from cold weather. Some growers claim that a fall feeding of a fertilizer high in phosphorous & potassium (no nitrogen!) will improve winter hardiness but we have no firsthand experience with this technique.