House & Home Clumping bamboo help - transplanted but dying?

Hi all

I'm hoping for advice on transplanted clumping bamboo.

I recently transplanted 5 clumps of Gracillis bamboo from a garden a few km away. To do this , I cut each clump into smaller clumps - trying to salvage as much root mass as possible. The bamboo was about 5.5 metres high so I chopped it to 4m to fit in my car.

Potted it as quickly as I could, and tried to keep the roots moist during transport and planted each mini clump quickly (not sure how sucessfully with the first clumps as they were kept longer before planting).

It’s taken me 3 weeks to transplant all 5 clumps and I notice that the leaves on the earlier transplants have all died. Also, many of the 4m stalks are going from green to yellow progressively from the top of the bamboo stalks. (I've kept them watered.)

Photos below, show bamboo before transplanting and now.

Yesterday, I chopped most of the yellowing stalks down to about 60cm-1m in the hope that this will save them.

However, it occurs to me that the stalks may recover so thought I'd ask the forum before shortening them all!

 

Naturally they will experience some shock, which could equal yellowing (could come back) some or total loss.

Provided the prep is sufficient they should be ok.
I.e.
Dig hole 2 to 3 times larger than required (width & depth).
Add a shovel of pulverised sheep or cow manure (or blend of both) to the bottom of hole.
Add "QUALITY" soil conditioner (not $4 a bag crap stuff) leaving enough space to mix through 1 shovel of original content, and enough for plant to fit (without mixing cow/sheep through).
Water with Seasol to reduce stress (this is not a fertiliser/food, its a tonic, like medicine), apply more at-least 2 times per week (or more) for ~6wks.
Water in very well... (keep water up to it until established?winter)
Apply a coarse mulch that doesn't pack down firm, allows aeration, water to pass through.

If you want to go even further, source some fresh fish/seafood scraps, or buy a bag of fishing bait (mullies etc), add some to the hole before adding the cow/sheep manure.

 

They should be ok. When they start to recover feed them lawn fertiliser and keep heaps of water up to them. They’re basically a grass so love heaps of nitrogen. December to April is when they do most of their annual growing.

Your small space and cooler climate will restrict the Gracilis growth somewhat but most don’t realise how big they can grow. Never trust a landscape designer.

Here’s a picture of part of our less than 4 year old Gracilis hedge. We have 15 plants. It’s a lot bigger than it looks in the photo with the bamboo around 8 - 9 metres tall. These are still babies yet


Now prepare yourself. Here’s the local guy I buy my Gracilis from ($12 per single ryzome) standing next to a single 15 year old Gracilis bamboo plant. This is what I’m hoping mine eventually grow to but will be a bit smaller due to competing plants as a hedge. And yes I can assure you this is a Gracilis (Slender Weaver) bamboo plant:

 

Meant to ask.

In the photo is that a swimming pool close to the Gracilis hedge? If it is then perhaps not a wise decision. The leaf drop could become a pain. But if you thin the culms out periodically it may not be so bad. I’ve known of a number of people who regretted planting bamboo near house and pools etc and ended up getting rid of it.

Ours is in a perfect spot way down the back on a ridge to prevent erosion and provide privacy. Leaf drop is perfect there as the bamboo becomes self mulching. Our property is 1.25 acres.

 

The picture with the spa is the location they were removed from. And you've picked it right - the reason I was given the bamboo was because the owners were sick of the leaves dropping into the spa and clogging up the filter.

That picture is before transplanting.

 

Thank you very much for this advice, Westoz.

 

Thank you for this information Nodrog. That Gracillis is huge. In Melbourne, I think it stays a bit smaller!

Here, the cheapest I could find was $45 a small pot with three thin stalks in each. This was a guy who propagates it in his backyard. I planted a few of these a couple of years ago and they are going well.

I was pretty excited to get the transplanted clumps for free. It was much harder than expected to dig out though!

 

Yep the guy I get them from is a wholesale seller who I know personally so I get them cheap. There’s usually 3 - 5 in a single pot which he then divides. But I buy one pot and divide them myself.

He he that huge bamboo picture is from the eco community up here called Crystal Waters. It’s probably one of the biggest Gracilis specimens you’ll ever see. In the Sunshine Coast hinterlands where I am we have perfect growing conditions for Gracilis. That is, warmer and high rainfall.

I love Gracilis. Very tough and pretty much looks after itself. Looks great and Best privacy hedge ever.

 

Did the Bamboo bounce back?

 

I ended up shortening a lot of them. And afterwards realised that I should have hung on for a lot longer to see what happened (it just looked so bad I didn’t want to see it).

And mostly they bounced back. The shortened culms never get longer of course, but others come up. Some of the culms I left longer did sprout more leaves eventually - but others didn’t.

They’ve all (except one) been long ago transplanted into the garden and are doing very well. They definitely do better in the garden too.

 

Thanks for your reply, I have just transplanted root bound bamboo and its
wilted terribly in only a couple days, so not sure if I should cut it back or hope for the best. I had to cut out a fair amount of the roots to lift it out of the pot,

 

All bamboos are extremely hard to transplant specially if you try to divide the clump.. it doesn’t matter how much moisture roots have or how much soil they retain, it’s just way all the bamboos are.

You will likely need to start with smaller plants (1-2 meters) and wait for them to grow. I planted 3 single small plants 3 years ago and had a 100% privacy in months and now they have grown up to 7-8 meters and there must be over 100 stems.

Planting them next to a swimming pool will add 10 times to your pool cleaning routines. Bamboos shed a lot of leaf and other small litter that fills up your pool in no time .. I have to clean my pool twice a week else leaves end up blocking the skimmer box but I will never remove bamboos because nothing else can offer privacy like a bamboo clump would do!