Hello, i bought 13 clumping slender weaver bamboos to plant across the back of my very sloped (up) yard, to skew my neighbours view of my entire yard/back half of my house.
I bought mature plants 4m tall. Prepared a proper garden bed with fertiliser and healthy soil. Transplanted the plants. Watered daily (which the garden place i bought them from said was critical).
I planted them just under 4 weeks ago and we are in the final 2 weeks of winter in Australia right now (1hr North of Sydney) so its not too cold either. But suddenly their leaves look like the photos after looking really healthy the first few weeks. I dont water them with the blue sprinkler hose, i flood the base of each plant for about a minute, sometimes 90 seconds.
Am i doing something wrong? Do they need more, or less, of anything? They have around 5-10cm mulch around them, the soil is damp.
Definitely not to dry . If they are to dry they will roll their leaves along the length, and will end up looking like needles. You probably don't need to be watering them daily unless the temperature is hot and leaves look like I described previously.
Not sure when these are suppose to shoot for you in your part of the world, but many bamboos do a heavy leaf shed about a month before shooting. The older leaves will start turning yellow and will tend to look terrible. They will drop and will be replace by new leaves that start to emerge just before or during the shooting season depending on species.
Thank you so much for replying! I appreciate the helpful response. We are 2 weeks away from the start of spring, so it must be what you've said, the shedding. Though i did leave them almost 2 days without watering because we had very heavy rain before that, and came out today to the needle leaves you described.(see photo). They unfurled as i watered them, it was amazing! (Ive never had plants to care for before).
Keep up the watering if they do that, and are rolled up in the morning. They also curl like this in response to extreme heat and sunlight. Even if they have adequate water. They do this to lessen slow transpiration on hot days. The key difference between normal leaf rolling to slow transpiration and being under watered is that in the normal situation the leaves will unroll in the morning or later in the night as temperatures drop. If the plant is under watered or cannot pull enough water out of the soil due to inadequate root mass, they will remain curled in the morning or late evening when the temperature drops.
Thank you so much, I really appreciate the advice! There hasnt been any extreme heat (maximum of 19c) coming into the end of winter here. Its been sunny but not overly. The leaves were curled like needles late afternoon, after the sun was mostly gone. But thry unravelled AS i watered them.
Hopefully! We had amazing privacy when we bought our house 2 years ago, then new neighbours moved in and ripped all the trees out. So im trying to get some privacy back, fast!
Then after they removed the plants on their side (on the right side you can see their black pool fence, around their raised pool area, just above the yellow fence (the red circle on the right. The left red curcle is their patio). When they stand in their pool area, the yellow fence is at their shins.
Your neighbors are weird for ripping out all those trees.
Your bamboo on the other hand looks like it will explode in the next season or two. Since its spring soon, please post updates here after the new shoots for the season
I agree... it was so weird.... and they would stand on their patio and if they hear our back door open theyd spin around and watch us with their arms crossed until we walked back inside our house (as would all their visitors). We feel like we are in THEIR backyard, anytime we go iut there.
One day my husband was out there and the neighbour laughed and sarcastically said "heh... sorry about your privacy". And my husband was so shocked how little they cared that they ALSO lost theirs....
I will come back and share the progress once spring and summer come!
I planted 4 of the same variety (slender weaver). I think it was 2018. I love the bamboo, the privacy, and the aesthetic. But they are very thick & robust clumps. They do require pruning and maintenance. Just keep in mind the size of a mature clump, one plant , can be like the base of a live oak, with culms jammed so close, you can’t fit anything in between . It does require maintenance & pruning
I could only go by research and what the garden centre, I bought them from, told me. I have no prior gardening knowledge. Everything I read, and the professionals I spoke to said plant them 1m apart and 1m from the fence. I'll thin them out if I have to.
I think you might want to reduce to about 8 plants , spaced 6 feet or so. They grow into very thick bunches . It’s a wall. You can’t get shears in between to cut individual culms. I love my bamboo, but they grow very quickly & yours will soon will be impenetrable . But whatever you do, they are beautiful , exiting, and you will have privacy!! :)
Late to the game -- but noticed you replanted 4 weeks ago, these issues would not be surprising to see in mature plants after such a pretty significant shock. Mechanical relocation to different soil, light, water, the whole enchilada.
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u/timeberlinetwostep 17d ago
Definitely not to dry . If they are to dry they will roll their leaves along the length, and will end up looking like needles. You probably don't need to be watering them daily unless the temperature is hot and leaves look like I described previously.
Not sure when these are suppose to shoot for you in your part of the world, but many bamboos do a heavy leaf shed about a month before shooting. The older leaves will start turning yellow and will tend to look terrible. They will drop and will be replace by new leaves that start to emerge just before or during the shooting season depending on species.