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How to Care for Your Lucky Bamboo in Soil

How to Care for Your Lucky Bamboo in Soil

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Have you seen someone at your office who has a lucky bamboo plant recently? These plants seem to be all over the place because they’re just so popular and fun to take care of.

They’re actually given away as gifts quite often because they’re said to symbolize luck. You can give someone a lucky bamboo plant to wish them good luck and to attempt to make their lives more fortunate.

Of course, whether these fun plants are actually capable of bestowing luck and fortune will be for you to decide. That doesn’t mean that you won’t like owning one, though.

Perhaps you’ve been given a lucky bamboo plant recently by a colleague or a family member. You might be curious about what you need to do to take care of this plant and keep it looking nice.

Read on to learn all about lucky bamboo care in soil. This will give you everything that you need to know to take care of the plant well so that it can grow healthy and strong for a long time to come.

Lucky Bamboo Can Survive in Vases of Water

Lucky Bamboo Can Survive In A Vase Of Water

Before going further, it’s good to point out that you don’t necessarily have to grow lucky bamboo in soil. In fact, you might have seen someone else keeping a lucky bamboo stalk in a glass vase that is filled with water.

This is actually very common and it isn’t completely necessary to plant lucky bamboo in soil. These plants have the potential to do quite nicely in just the water so long as you’re caring for them properly.

Lucky bamboo will be a very versatile plant to consider for someone who isn’t used to taking care of plants. You can approach lucky bamboo care in many different ways, and it’s actually kind of hard to kill these plants.

Some have even referred to lucky bamboo stalks as being nearly invincible. Granted, they aren’t invincible and you can certainly kill lucky bamboo if you let mistakes pile up time and time again.

Knowing all of this, it can be very rewarding to care for lucky bamboo plants in soil. The process of taking care of lucky bamboo plants in the soil won’t be difficult, but at least you know that you have the option of just putting it in water if you’d prefer to go that route.

There might even be some advantages to placing lucky bamboo plants in soil. If you’re working with a larger lucky bamboo plant, then it will have more support and be able to grow easier if it is placed in soil.

You might have to use something to give the plant support artificially if you decide to simply place it in water. Many lucky bamboo fans think that soil is the best way to go when you plan on growing tall and healthy lucky bamboo plants.

Choose the Right Soil

Lucky Bamboo In Soil

Growing lucky bamboo plants in the soil won’t be too hard, but you will want to ensure that you pick the right type of soil. A lucky bamboo plant is going to do best when you place it in well-drained potting soil that is also rich in nutrients.

You want to do your best to keep the soil moist for the lucky bamboo plant. It’s going to do well when it gets a lot of water, but that doesn’t mean that you want the soil to become soggy.

Basically, you just want to keep the soil moist without letting it get really dry. Don’t go overboard with the watering and everything is going to work out just fine with your lucky bamboo plant.

Keeping a lucky bamboo plant in soil really isn’t any harder or easier than just placing it into a container with water. It’s just up to you to decide which option makes the most sense.

Choose Your Pot Carefully

Choosing your pot carefully is another important recommendation when planting lucky bamboo plants in soil. You want to make sure that you use a good pot that has sufficient drainage holes.

This is going to help to keep your lucky bamboo plant in good condition. The drainage holes will ensure that the water is able to drain out as it should, and this protects the roots of the plant.

Failure to use a pot with drainage holes can lead to the roots becoming waterlogged. This could be a significant problem, but it’s very easy to avoid by just using a good pot for the plant.

Some people even place a layer of gravel at the bottom of the pot to help with drainage. So long as you’re keeping drainage in mind, it’ll be easy to get the results that you want.

Be Careful When Watering

You should try to be careful when watering your lucky bamboo plant. Even though this is a hardy plant that is tough to kill, it’s still possible to harm the plant by using bad water.

As with many other plants, it’s going to be best to try to use water that doesn’t contain chemicals when you’re watering your lucky bamboo plant. These plants will be sensitive to the chlorine that can be found in your tap water, and that means that you should probably use a different water source.

If you have been taking care of plants for a while, then you likely already know not to use tap water. Tap water can harm plants due to having chlorine, fluoride, and other chemicals.

Most people choose to go out and buy distilled water from the store or something like that. However, that might not seem convenient or practical to everybody.

You could also buy a good filter for your water system at home so that you won’t have to worry about chemicals. This is a good option if you’re willing to spend a bit of money to filter out the chemicals in your tap water.

Another option is to simply pour your tap water into a watering can and let it sit out for a day or so in the sun. This will naturally cause the chlorine to evaporate and you can then use the water to water your plants without having to worry.

There are workarounds that make it so that you don’t have to worry so much about your tap water. Just don’t water your plants directly from the tap and you’ll likely be fine.

Sunlight Requirements

Getting the sunlight requirements right will make it more likely that your lucky bamboo plant will thrive. These plants do really well when placed in bright filtered sunlight.

When you find these plants naturally, they’re often positioned under rainforest canopies or something like that. Direct sunlight is a bit too harsh for the lucky bamboo plant since it’ll wind up scorching its leaves.

It would actually be better to err on the side of caution and give the plant a little less light than it would be to place it in full sunlight. This is a very hardy and tolerant plant, but you still do want to try to give it the optimal situation to grow.

If you notice that your lucky bamboo plant is stretching or reaching, then that’s a sign that it wants more light. You might notice the green of the lucky bamboo plant start to fade if it is getting far too little light, and that shows you that you should make some changes.

You really shouldn’t have a hard time finding a bright spot where you can give the lucky bamboo plant filtered sunlight. Just look for an optimal place in your home and be sure to keep the sunlight filtered enough to protect the plant.

You’ll want the temperature to be somewhere between 60 and 90 degrees Fahrenheit when caring for lucky bamboo plants. This is a pretty wide range that shouldn’t be problematic being that most people care for these plants indoors.

So long as you have some type of temperature-controlled environment, it isn’t going to be hard to keep your lucky bamboo plants happy. The only thing you’ll need to look out for is drafts.

Try to place your lucky bamboo plant in a spot where it won’t get blasted by cold drafts. This means keeping it away from drafty windows and doors when it’s cold outside.

You’ll also want to position your plant away from air conditioning units and vents. Overall, it’s going to be simple to avoid significant issues with temperature tolerance when caring for these plants.

The humidity levels won’t be much of a concern either. The average humidity level in most homes will be perfectly fine for these plants and you shouldn’t need to take special steps to help the plant thrive.

An exception to this would be if your home is very dry during a particular season. For instance, some homes get very dry during the winter months, and this means that you might need to use a humidifier to bring the humidity levels back up to an average level.

Humidity isn’t a common concern with lucky bamboo plants, though. If you take care of other houseplants, it’s going to be a good idea to invest in a humidifier.

Using Fertilizer

You might be interested in using fertilizer to try to help your lucky bamboo plant grow tall. This isn’t a bad idea, but you really shouldn’t use much fertilizer on these plants at all.

In fact, using just a single drop of liquid fertilizer each month is going to be more than sufficient for most lucky bamboo plants. You won’t even need to use an especially strong liquid fertilizer to get the best results.

Experts recommend using organic fertilizer for lucky bamboo plants. This works best because organic fertilizer doesn’t have high amounts of salt or phosphorus like many of the commercial chemical fertilizers do.

Too much salt and phosphorus can potentially damage your plant. It shouldn’t be hard to find a good organic fertilizer to use, and it can boost the growth potential of the plant during the summer months.

Some lucky bamboo enthusiasts even think that using fertilizer isn’t very necessary at all. It’s really up to you whether you decide to utilize fertilizer or not.

If you do want to use fertilizer, then just remember not to go overboard with it. Too much fertilizer is always a bad thing for plants, and your lucky bamboo plant really doesn’t need a lot of fertilizer to help it stay strong.

When you use more fertilizer than you should, you might wind up noticing yellow leaves on your lucky bamboo plant. The best thing to do if this happens is to stop using the fertilizer and just let the plant be.

Things should eventually return to normal and you won’t likely kill the plant or anything like that. Just take it as a sign that you need to be more careful with the fertilizer moving forward.

Final Thoughts

Caring for lucky bamboo plants in the soil won’t be too difficult now that you know what’s expected. You’re going to be able to get good results when caring for lucky bamboo plants this way so long as you approach things with the right mindset.

Remember to choose a well-draining potting mix and ensure that the soil has plenty of nutrients. When you’re picking out a pot to use, it’s imperative to find one that has adequate drainage holes.

You’ll want to put the lucky bamboo plant someplace sunny where it can receive filtered sunlight. Direct sunlight can be too harsh for the plant, but it’s easy to find spots to give houseplants filtered sunlight anyway.

Water your plant using distilled water or by allowing tap water to sit out for 24 hours before watering sessions. This protects it from harmful chemicals that can keep your lucky bamboo plant from doing as well as it should.

Keep your plant away from drafts and you’ll be doing very well. It’ll be satisfying to care for a lucky bamboo plant like this and you’ll be able to enjoy it for many years to come.

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