How To Grow Bamboo Plants In Your Garden

Everybody loves a beautiful garden: a beautiful garden is a feast for virtually all of the senses. The aromatic foliage, the scent of flowers, the scent of flowers, and the sweet fragrance of mown grass, fallen leaves, and fresh rain all appeal to our sense of smell. For instance, the Bamboo garden idea conjures up images of bamboo swaying back and forth gently with its leaves, making the swishing sounds as the breeze passes.

A Guide To Growing Bamboo

Bamboo has an extraordinary aesthetic value since time immemorial, and its shape has gathered beautiful and elegant charm. Besides, watching the newly emerging bamboo shoots in early summer and spring is a sensation, unlike any other, a homeowner is likely to experience.

The new bamboo shoots emerge from the ground the size that the full culm will have and then proliferates to its full height in about sixty days. Further, bamboo leafy foliage can provide an excellent privacy barrier between your compound and your next-door neighbor. What’s not to like!

However, bamboos are often expansive when grown in a small localized environment and can take over gardens if left unchecked for some time. Understanding this fact will help you plan how best to incorporate these beautiful plants in your garden. Knowing how to grow Bamboo plants in your garden will leave you with attractive and eye-catching landscaped space.

Growing Bamboo

The Bamboo plant is one of the most misunderstood plants: Most people assume that all types of bamboo are invasive. However, to be invasive, a species must have the capability to spread rapidly over a great distance.

The bamboo is only expansive on a small scale because the spreading occurs only from the root system, meaning the bamboo can be controlled by controlling the root system. There are two types of bamboo plants: clumping bamboo and the running bamboo.

While the clumps expand but stay in one place rather than reaching out the running bamboo spread using their underground rhizomes and often cover the great distance within a short spun. Here are things to consider before growing bamboo plants:

  • Bamboo prefers a soil pH of about 6.0 and in full sun
  • Planted bamboo seedling requires consistent watering; however, the water has to dry out in the soil between watering: standing water inhibits growth.
  • When planting bamboo plants, consider its eventual diameter and locate it in a place where its natural growth will not affect the existing features like boundaries or paths.
  • Fertilizing is accelerating bamboo growth by about a year or more. Since not all soils have the same amount of nutrients, the bamboo seedling can benefit significantly from the additional fertilizer.

Bamboo Growth cycle

When it comes to planting bamboo choose a bamboo plant and not the seeds because temperate bamboo often seeds on the seventy-five-year cycle, and viability of the bamboo seeds is short: most bamboo seeds are not viable.

It is important to note that the bamboo division that is planted begins to grow underground first. The culms attached to the rhizomes will only support the root system and will not immediately take off and get taller. The initial bamboo planted never grows in diameter or in height; it just grows underground, spreading the rhizome.

A new bamboo shoot emerges during the first spring and grows up to about four feet every day and lasts for about sixty days, after which it will never grow again.

Rather than grow upwards, the bamboo utilizes the energy made in the foliage and the culm to more and more spring growth. This cycle often continues until the bamboo reaches maturity, which is usually seven to ten years. The bamboo can be grown in a container, a trench, and in the ground. Here is a description of each:

Ground

Once you have decided on the type of bamboo you want to grow, select a place and dig up a hole double the bamboo rootball’s diameter. Add compost or fertilizer into the base of the hole and place the bamboo plant. Cover the root mass with soil while mixing it with compost. Lastly, add more compost or fertilizer over the top of the bamboo plant and water it.

Trench

If you are planning to grow bamboo in a larger area, it will help if you dug up a channel that is between two and four feet deep. Ensure that the trench runs along the section that you want to plant the bamboo. Also, ensure that the trench curves form a C shape.

Afterward, it would help if you lined the trench with impenetrable material, such as corrugated iron or paving slabs, leaving two or three inches over the soil surface. Further, add some compost or fertilizers, plant the bamboo, and mix more compost with soil then cover the bamboo plant with the same. Dig another trench close to the first trench, and it should be of the same height.

In containers

Bamboo growing in containers or pots can be quite stunning. The combination of colors, texture, shapes, and sizes to go with the bamboo plant is limitless. Growing in containers is one way of controlling the bamboos. It is also perhaps the quickest and easiest way to grow this elegant plant. First, dig a hole and sink a large container into the ground. Add compost and insert the bamboo plant, after which you cover the whole plant with a mixture of soil and some more compost.

Additionally, both varieties can be grown in containers; the only difference is how quickly you will have to repot them. For instance, the running bamboo spreads its rhizome relatively way quicker, and thus you will have to divide and report it every few years to keep it healthy. When choosing a container for the bamboo, choose.

Caring for your Bamboo

Caring for the bamboo after it has established is straightforward. The bamboo plant grows well when it receives at least one inch of water each week. It would help if you watered the bamboo deeply every day and leave the soil to dry in between watering to encourage the rhizome to proliferate. This will help your bamboo survive in the dry season. Also, do not rake up the leave form the bamboo rhizome as the leaves help the keep the root moist and protected.

The leaves similarly return vital nutrients to the soil when they decompose. Further, keep your bamboo plant healthy by removing the dead matter from the culm and around the base to improve air circulation. Additionally, if you have planted running bamboo, regularly conduct root maintenance to ensure the bamboo does not take over your garden.

Multiple homeowners would never even consider growing bamboo in their garden because of multiple misconceptions. However, if you carefully plan your garden space and choose a planting method that suits your landscape, the bamboo plant will leave you with a marvelous landscaped area. Create serenity in your garden by growing bamboo plants, and you will discover that the bamboo conjures the feeling of peace, tranquility, and calm. Also, you can use the bamboo plant to line your yard; its bushy foliage will fil in the spaces gorgeously. So why not grow bamboo plants for a beautiful backdrop.