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I'm going to see if I can encourage my newly-planted P. bambusoides to follow the moisture in a wood chip berm around our water reservoir. Hopefully, it will help build up soil too, since there's only a few inches in some spots here. I'll definitely be adding more as this breaks down.

jbd wrote:I'm going to see if I can encourage my newly-planted P. bambusoides to follow the moisture in a wood chip berm around our water reservoir. Hopefully, it will help build up soil too, since there's only a few inches in some spots here. I'll definitely be adding more as this breaks down.

I know a bamboo nurseryman who uses wood chip berms for easy propagation - plant a division in some decent soil and then surround with wood chips and the rhizomes run fast and are easy to lift and divide.

I'd cover it with dirt. Then you would have a most excellent hugelkultur bed. After a point you would probably not ever have to water it. I think they say 6' of wood is the minimum for a self-sustaining bed, but you are close. Hugelkultur would work really well in your dry environment.