We moved in mid July and took our "yearling" planted black bamboo with us as we are attached to "her". We followed the great advice given to us from this forum and the late transplant went off without a hitch ( thanks again Ron B.!) and within about two weeks of being put in the pot, bamboo "exploded"! She seems to like her new pot as She has become very fluffy with lots of new leaves and went on a very noticable spontaneous growth spurt. she was pretty before but she is just gorgeous now! Since we have moved to a duplex, we must keep her potted. We want to know if this sudden growth spurt was normal, and will it hurt her to be kept potted, and is there anything we should do to keep her root system healthy? Does she need to be trimmed in a paticular way? We will eventually want to move her to a bigger pot but with the fall season approaching us here in Oregon (Eugene) we just want to make sure we have taken the correct measures to keep her happy and healthy through the winter... Thanks for your help!! Dawn Marie
Are you growing the plant indoors or out? I've had this same experience, though perhaps not so quickly, of a recently potted bamboo bursting into growth. For me, I think the main cause has been moving the plant from outside (where it is fairly chilly, even in the "warm" times of the year) to the steady warmth indoors. Also, I think when I transplant, I tend to pamper the plants with extra loving care, which makes them think the good time are here. They do sometimes go crazy with new growth. Then of course when I move them outside again in the spring, they are quite startled and start dropping leaves.
I grow about 12 species of bamboo, all potted. Without fail, every year I wait until a week or two before shooting season for the type (running or clumping) and repot with good soil into the next size up pot (1-3 or 5, 3 or 5-7, 7-10, 10-15, 15-20, 20-30). I usually double the number of culms without losing a single one, and they are almost always bigger and better. I had a Dendrocalamus strictus give me a bit of a surprise this year when I potted it up two months early. I took a small division out of a couple of canes that were too far out of round, and wound up getting one new cane in each of the now two pots. It had been in a 15 and I bumped it to a 20 and a 5. The 20 put out a new culm 1/8" in diameter, and about 2' long within two weeks. The fresh division in the 5 gallon pot put out a 1/2" diameter culm within the same two weeks, full-sized at 6 1/2' The biggest surprise was when the 20 took off in shooting season, and put out a 18' culm at 1 1/2" That was about half-again as large as any other culm in the pot!
