Hi - not sure if I am posting in the right section for this but: I have several different bamboos in my garden - soil is alkaline and slightly dry - all of them are doing extremely well except one - semiarundinaria fastuosa. The some of the new leaves emerge with a purple tinge to the ends and proceed to dry up and die before fully opening. Wondered if anyone could give some help with this as to what could be wrong. Thanks Ann
hi Ann, I'm not an expert but I am having a bit of the same problem with different species. I have two bamboo. The one planted in the damper part of the garden is doing very well indeed, but the Arundinaria Japonica which is in a drier less fertile spot in the garden is looking poorly which the same results as yours. I'm planning to move the Japonica to a moister more fertile bit of the garden when the weather permits. It's fairly small so hopefully it will transplant ok and I'm hoping the moistness and fertility will get it established. Hopefully someone with more knowledge will chip in with a response too. Regards
Slightly dry is probably the main problem, bamboos love lots of water. There are generally very hungry plants too, so lots of feed too. chicken poo pellets, home made compost, well rotted horse muck, anything like that. Leaf curl is gernally a sign of stress, so watch out for it. If you see the leaves curl then put a lot of water on it, once they curl and dry up then you will loose the leaves. Arundinaria Japonica is an old name, its now known by the name pseudosasa japonica, again it sounds like its too dry.
My bamboos (the black one) have all got brown leaves on them that are falling off. I water it every evening and they haven't grown much so not sure what's happening.