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Original Message Growing Bamboo Indoors
Bamboo should be planted in large, 14” or bigger, pots. Set against a window or a bright wall, these plants make a striking design statement. Although they grow quickly, you can restrain them somewhat by keeping them pot bound. You can also control the growth by restricting the fertilizer. Since bamboo is related to grass, it relies on heavy doses of nitrogen to keep it growing lush and rampant. By using an organic fertilizer lower in nitrogen, such as cotton seed meal or fish emulsion, you provide the plant with the nutrients it requires while slowing it’s growth.
Interesting fact; The stems of bamboo are called culms. New culms emerge from the soil with the same diameter they will have when they are fully grown. If you cut out the largest culms when the emerge, you will cultivate only the smaller stems, thus inhibiting the size of the plant even further.
All bamboos drop their old leaves as new leaves are forming. This is the messy season, depending on which type of bamboo you choose. Clumping types loose their leaves in the summer, or whenever the plants are watered after a long dry spell. Running types of bamboo usually drop their old leaves in the spring. If you don’t like the mess during the leaf drop season, set the plants outside, if the weather allows.
Select from among the smaller growing varieties for indoor cultivation. Here are a few to ask for at your nursery;
Mexican Weeping bamboo grows to 8 feet
Marbled bamboo grows to 2 - 4 feet
Big-leaved bamboo 1 - 2 feet
Dwarf whitestripe bamboo 1 - 2 feet

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