Page 1 of 1

Raising soil around bamboo

Posted: Sat Aug 24, 2019 7:37 pm
by thebambooguy
I built a 10 inch box around my bamboo and I'm wondering if the bamboo will rot if I bury around 10 inches of the bottoms of the canes.

Re: Raising soil around bamboo

Posted: Sun Aug 25, 2019 7:23 am
by Tarzanus
I think it shouldn't. I did that same thing after I ended up losing like 1/3 of the culms due to uprooting, caused by voles digging under the grove, and heavy rain followed by a few inches of wet snow.
I piled up to 20 cm of dirt over the soil to cover the rhizomes. Old culms are still alive - the ones that remained, but the new growth is way larger and healthier, so I'll just thin the old canes in the spring.

Re: Raising soil around bamboo

Posted: Sun Aug 25, 2019 9:53 pm
by thebambooguy
Interesting. So what you're saying is that you had nothing but benefits from doing so?

Re: Raising soil around bamboo

Posted: Mon Aug 26, 2019 6:38 am
by Tarzanus
Only con I can think of is the fact that rhizomes are deeper and could be somewhat harder to maintain contained without the barrier. You need to dig a bit deeper to be sure you got all the rhizomes out. With proper containment that's not an issue though.

Re: Raising soil around bamboo

Posted: Mon Aug 26, 2019 3:08 pm
by dependable
I've never seen it rot the culms when I raise the grade. Eventually rhizomes will work their way up and subsequent culms will be at normal soil depth.

If you bury them deep enough, the next generation of culms may come up more like survival shoots, but we are talking many feet here. I have made some fairly drastic grade changes in and around some of my perimeter groves by adding large amounts of fill, yard waste compost, wood chips, etc. The bamboo always bounces back.

Re: Raising soil around bamboo

Posted: Mon Aug 26, 2019 5:28 pm
by thebambooguy
This is very encouraging to hear! I don't have any problem with the bamboo spreading as much as it wants so I'm not worried about that. Deeper rhizomes will probably do better where I am because of the winters here. I don't think I'll bury them too deep, like I said only 10 inches. Now I just need to find around 20 wheelbarrows full of soil...

Re: Raising soil around bamboo

Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 7:45 pm
by Alan_L
I helped a friend dig out a bamboo that he had been growing for 10+ years in a small space (maybe 5' diameter area). His method was to dig out the trench around the circle, then throw the soil into the middle (in the growing area). The result was that this plant had at least 18" deep of crisscrossed rhizomes, and it was a real pain to dig out. Other than that the plant was fine. :)