How do I know if I'm watering too much?

Bamboo leaves that are receiving adequate water are flat and open

While the leaves of the same type of bamboo (in this case, yellow groove running bamboo) getting insufficient water curl inward

I received this email today:

We have had our bamboo in the ground for about 3 weeks now, Seabreeze and Vivax.  I have the spray emitters I purchased from you on the 12 Seabreeze and have been watering the Vivax by hand.  After reading the internet and your blog I am finding conflicting information on watering.  In one of your recent posts it said water as much as possible during daylight hours.  Another spot on your site I read 30 min twice daily when new.  

Other places on the net vary from every other day to once a week after established. Due to our current schedule, I have been watering with the spray emitters for about an hour a day, sometimes longer in the afternoon and then a good soaking with the hose on the Vivax.  I have mulched the plants with leaves and the soil remains damp until the next watering.  I am seeing a lot of new growth on the current canes so I assume I am giving enough water. 

I think my main concern is over watering since I know they are not getting dried out between waterings.  I planted with your bamboo booster as directed and have typical very sandy soil outside of where we replaced with the bamboo booster.  Is there much risk of over watering?  Is there any harm in watering in the evening or possibly after dark?  I know I need to buy a timer, but I am in manual mode for now.  Any tips are appreciated.

My response:
Sorry for the confusing information.  The bottom line with bamboo in FL is that it is almost impossible to give them too much water.  If the bamboo are standing in water that doesn't drain away for more than two weeks, that would be a problem, but that isn't likely to happen in FL.  It might happen if you lived in an area where soil drainage is poor with, for instance, pockets of heavy clay.  In that case, over-watering would be a concern.

The post where I mentioned watering the bamboo as much as possible refers to recently transplanted large clumps of bamboo like the one pictured in that post.  The watering you are doing to your smaller plants is perfectly adequate.  The thing to understand with bamboo is that it likes water and sends out more shoots when grown in moist conditions. 

That's not to say bamboo won't grow well with less water.  It will, just not as vigorously.  We tell people to water frequently in the beginning to both help the plants adjust to transplanting and also to encourage growth.  After two or three years, your bamboos will have met or exceeded your initial size/height/width expectations.  (For examples of bamboo growth, see the 'Before and After' pictures sent by our customers.)  At that point you might want to back off watering.  You can even stop irrigating completely after a couple years and the bamboo will still do just fine. 

The thing to remember is you can slow down or increase the size of your clump by adjusting TWO THINGS:  The amount of water the bamboo receives and the frequency of soil amendments in the form of fertilizer and/or top dressings of organic matter like leaves, grass clippings, compost, manure, etc.  

More of both = More prolific growth.

Regarding the time of day to water, it is not important when you water.  Do it whenever it is convenient for you.  The main thing, when your plants are young, is to water them regularly.  We recommend using a programmable timer but even if you rely on hand-watering, use the bamboo leaves as indicators of your watering needs.  If you see leaves beginning to curl, then you know they need more water.  Turn on the sprinklers, the leaves will uncurl and the bamboos will be happy.

It doesn't matter if you use overhead sprinkers, spot spitters or hand-water, the important thing is to water your newly transplanted and young plants regularly

 

Should bamboo watering schedule change with the seasons?

A customer from Winter Park, FL wrote to ask about winter watering needs for bamboo:

Now that winter is still with us, yet changing into something like Spring over the next few days, should we adjust our winter watering schedule? We have restrictions at this time of year: once a week is the city limit. Yet I could go out and give each bamboo clump, say, a gallon or two a day if you advised. Most of the bambusa chungii still have green leaves, but on a number of these leaves the tips are brown. I'm thinking that is a seasonal thing, but maybe you will say more water is needed. I'm also planning to put Black Kow around each clump later this week.

My response:
Soil conditions, fertilizer and water are the 3 key ingredients needed to make large, healthy bamboo plants.  

Clumping bamboos send up new shoots during the warm months and those shoots will be a larger diameter and taller if they are growing in rich, well-irrigated soil.  Adding compost, manure, grass clippings or any other organic matter as a top dressing around existing plants is always beneficial in any season.  As it rains or when the bamboos are watered, the nutrients from the top dressing leaches into the subsoil to be absorbed by the roots.  

If water restrictions limits watering to once a week any additional hand watering will help.  The more you water, the sooner new shoots will emerge.  But don't worry if you can't do that.  Bamboos can handle minimal watering, they just grow faster and get bigger sooner if they are more frequently irrigated.  

The browning on the tips of the Bambusa chungii (Blue Timber) is, as you suspected, just a natural part of the winter season.  Bamboo leaves die and fall to the ground all year long but it seems to happen more so in the winter.  The brown tips are not a sign that your plants are lacking in water or are nutrient deficient.  It just signals a transition time from one season to the next.  


Keep your eyes open for new shoots on the Bambusa chungii.  Just within the last few days I've noticed new shoots emerge on the Blue Timber bamboos that we planted last year.

How long do I have to keep watering my bamboo?

On May 4th I received an email from a customer in Orlando who bought bamboo from us over a year ago: 

My neighbor asked if my bamboo will always need to be watered. (The sprinkler is on as I write this.) I told him that when the rainy season has arrived, then I needn’t water, but that during the dry season – even after the bamboo is established – I’ll need to water twice a day. Am I correct?

By the way, the bamboo is finally becoming truly a privacy wall, though, surprisingly, I’ve not yet had any new canes this year. I did fertilize two weeks ago.

My response:

New canes will be appearing soon.  May - November is the time to see above-ground growth.  About the watering, after a year you can stop watering your plants entirely if you wish but they will grow bigger faster if given regular water as you've been doing.  Once the bamboos fill in to a point where you are happy with their look, you can cut back severely on irrigating.  We have mature clumps of bamboo all around our property that we never water and they are doing just fine. 

In this picture our son Toby (how little he was in 2004!) is standing next to a 10-year-old stand of Bambusa multiplex silverstripe (Green Hedge Clumping Bamboo).  We gave the hedge regular water for the first couple years but since then it hasn't been irrigated at all. 

Bamboo Q & A

A customer from the Orlando area who recently purchased and installed several Blue Timber (Bambusa chungii) clumping bamboos wrote with a few questions:

Hi Sherry,  How are you?  I hope this finds you doing well.  I am writing to ask some specific questions about our Bambusa chungii that arose after reading your wonderful blog. I find myself going back to your blog almost daily to look up something or read what you’ve written about a particular topic. 

OK.  First off, irrigation.  As you may recall, we purchased 5 Bambusa chungii from you. They are now integrated into our driveway landscape, placed about 10’ apart.  I have redone the irrigation system for this area, using a drip line with two dedicated lines for each plant (well, one has a line and a nearby spray head).  I have placed two of these micro-bubbler irrigation heads about an inch from the vertical culm of each bamboo: http://www.amazon.com/Orbit-Irrigation-67110-Micro-Bubbler-Stake/dp/B002R9O4OK.  This way when I turn on the sprinkler system, each plant gets a dedicated shower with a specific radius range of about a foot from the base of the vertical culm.  I have also added mulch around each plant.  We have a lot of oak trees here, so we have leaves galore.

OK, on your blog I read a comment from someone asking about newly planted bamboos and this person mentioned watering each bamboo for 2 hours.  Wow, that seems like a lot.  I turn on the bamboo zone for 10-12 minutes twice a day, then twice a week in addition that zone is part of our overall watering schedule (in Winter Park you can water two days a week) and the bamboo zone goes on for 25 minutes.  All the bambusa chungii now have leaves sprouting from the joints of each culm.  On all but one plant the leaves have no yellow; one of the tallest bamboos has some yellow leaves.  There are no curling leaves (indicating lack of water).  Yet, still I wonder … am I under-watering?  Do they need more than this?  Please advise.

Next, fertilizing.  As you may recall, we got both soil and Dynamite from you which were put into the planting as you direct in your planting instructions sheet.  Some bamboos have been in the ground for 3 weeks now, some about a week.  So soon (the one-month mark) I was going to add fertilizer.  My local hardware store has been having trouble getting Ironite http://www.ironite.com/.  They told me that Ironite has re-formulated the mix and it is now hard to get.  Not sure when they will have the Ironite.  So … I can use something like this:  http://www.seedland.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=Seedland&Product_Code=FERT-423403-15&Category_Code=FERT-453284.

Should I use both, assuming that Ironite becomes available soon?  Can I start fertilizing after the 4-week mark?

Thanks again for all your good information.  It’s fun to check in with Beautiful Bamboo by listening to other people’s questions and thoughts.  Thanks too for your excellent comments on Metalifestream. 

My response:

Hi Barry - I'm glad you are finding my blog helpful.  Have you used the "Search this Blog" feature yet?  If not, you might find that useful when seeking out information on specific topics.  Concerning your questions, let's start with irrigation.  From your description of the plants' new leaves, it sounds like you are giving them adequate water.  Bamboos like water and it is difficult to give them too much but the amount you are doing seems perfectly fine for plants in a shady, well-mulched location like you've given them.  Especially during this year's rather moist springtime.

Concerning the fertilizer, you already applied sufficient fertilizer to last 6 months when you planted the bamboo and used Dynamite, a 6-mo. time release fertilizer that we sell at the nursery.  The fertilizer you linked to would be a good choice for the future but not necessary for immediate use.  If you use the one you linked to in the future, you can apply it every month since it is not a time release formula but be sure to follow the application directions since regular non-time release formulas do have the potential to "burn" plants if applied incorrectly.  What you can always do however, is apply organic material around the existing bamboos.  Just like with water, bamboos thrive when given an abundance of organic material such as compost, manure, grass clippings, leaves, etc.  So right now, don't apply additional chemical fertilizers but do pile on the organic matter.

Ironite is usually available at Lowes, although I haven't checked recently.  Newly planted bamboos usually don't require Ironite applications.  Some browning of the leaves is normal, especially following transplanting, and as long as new leaves are forming, don't worry about others leaves that fall off.  Focus instead on all the new growth that's just beginning to happen now and will continue to happen through November.

How much is too much fertilizer and mulch?

A customer in Orlando asks:
I’ve been reluctant to put down a lot of pine bark so as not to interfere with new canes coming up. Am I being too careful? Inasmuch as I planted the bamboo November 1, am I being too careful in waiting til May 1 to apply Dynamite again? I don’t want to over-fertilize.

My response:
About the Dynamite, there's no need to fertilize again until May since the beauty of a time-release formula is that it emits a slow but steady amount of fertilizer over a six month period. As for the mulch, you can place a light mulch around the plants at any time. The new shoots will push through the mulch with no trouble. As the plants mature, you can add a thicker coverage. Mulches help plants retain moisture while reducing competition from weeds and adding some nutrients to the soil.

How Much Should I Water Newly Planted Bamboo?

Customer's Question:
What should be the daily watering schedule after the first 30 days? I've been faithful to the twice-daily watering, and the bamboo is doing well. If I can maintain the twice-daily watering for a second month or even through the dry winter months, would that be good, or would that be too much?

Answer:
I'm glad you've been giving the bamboo 2x daily watering during their first month. It will do them nothing but good to continue that pattern for the next few months while rainfall is minimal. Bamboos like water. The only time it is too much is if they sit in puddles of water for weeks at a time. Your plants will grow without regular watering but they will grow much larger and faster with a regular schedule like you are presently giving them.