An overly tall and leggy bamboo won’t be as nice as a thick and sprawling specimen in the yard or landscape. If your goal is to have a thick hedge, screen, or privacy cover, or if you want to thicken your dwarf bamboo or lucky bamboo plant, then try these 5 recommendations.
How to Make Bamboo Grow Thicker? Try These Five Methods
Provide Ideal Growing Conditions
The first thing you need to do to thicken bamboo plants is to take stock of their environment and make the necessary changes to make it ideal for bamboo growth.
More often than not, your bamboo might be in a place that doesn’t get enough light, which explains why it’s stretched or leggy.
Although bamboo encompasses several garden varieties, they generally enjoy around four to six hours of direct sunlight each day. While they can grow in the shade or where there’s bright and indirect light, the stems and stalks won’t be as thick as a sun-grown plant.
Aside from light, you’ll need to plant bamboo in a well-drained and organically rich medium that’s high in aged compost. The soil should be able to hold quite a bit of moisture to support the plant’s growth.
Feed Your Bamboo Regularly
Though bamboo may seem like they don’t need fertilization, the opposite is actually true. In fact, if you want thick and robust stems and faster growth then feeding your bamboo plants is an absolute must.
Lawn fertilizer is the recommended fertilizer for bamboo plants. Other considerations include composted manure, a balanced NPK fertilizer, and slow-release or liquid feed given during the growing season. Bamboo is notorious for being hungry plants, and if you want them to grow healthy and produce thick stems then you’ll need to meet its nutritional requirements.
A once-a-month feeding following the manufacturer’s instructions should make your bamboo thicker over time. Organic manure or compost can work as well since bamboo mostly needs plenty of nitrogen in its growing medium.
Trim the Top
As with other plants, trimming the top will force bamboo to focus on growing thicker stems and branching out on its lower sections. The good news is that bamboo plants don’t seem to mind having their top lopped off and will usually bounce right back as hale and hearty as ever.
You can do a bit of trimming and pruning anytime during the growing season. Focus your attention first on the top area, going down and shaping as you go. Leave the new shoots alone and remove any dead and damaged culms while you’re at it.
Bamboo can be cut to the ground if they’ve become too thin and leggy, or if the top weight is causing the plants to bend over. It’s recommended that you use lopping pruners for smaller branches and a handsaw or pruning saw for thicker culms.
Water and Mulch Effectively
Watering and mulching can both make your bamboo plant grow strong. It’s especially important that your bamboo stays hydrated during the summer season.
You’ll have several choices to effectively water your bamboo. You can install a sprinkler system or drip irrigation, or if you have enough time, you can load up the old watering can or use a hose and soak the soil for around 10 to 15 minutes.
Bamboo will need constantly moist soil and frequent watering to grow. You can add a layer of mulch to prevent competing weeds and help retain soil moisture for longer. Wait until the bamboo is at least six to eight inches tall before you add mulch.
Give Your Bamboo Enough Space
Bamboo needs adequate space to grow and thrive. If your goal is to create a privacy screen, then you should observe a space of 3-5 feet apart when planting bamboo outside. For fast-growing varieties, you can space them out a bit more, at around 4 to 7 feet apart to allow for room to grow.
Planting bamboo too close to each other will result in competition and smaller plants. At the start, the bamboo may not create a solid hedge or screen, but wait several months and your bamboo plants should blend in and mesh well together. If in a potted container, make sure that it’s spacious enough to accommodate a thicker stem.