New Grower in North Florida needs help

[MOSO in FL]

After the catastrophic damage from Hurricane Michael we have lost over one million trees here in my part of Florida. We had (prior to the storm) almost one hundred different trees on my property now we have none. We decided to attempt growing MOSO bamboo to get some fast shade for the coming summer months and figured we could not go wrong with bamboo.

We received ten MOSO in the mail from a nursery about one week ago. They were all thrown in a box on top of each other with shredded paper on top. Two of them were dead on arrival ($70 loss).

I dug the holes 18" deep, put about 2" of gravel in the bottom, 6" of Peet Moss on top of that, mixed a 10-10-10 fertilizer with the native soil and put about 2" of that mix on top of the moss, then the bamboo plants and backfilled the holes with the remaining fertilizer/soil mix.

My bamboo are not looking good, the leaves and stems are turning brown despite giving them about 2gal/day.

Did I perhaps over fertilize the soil, am I not giving them enough water? Any reccemendations would be greatly appreciated as we do not want to lose these beautiful bamboo. We are in US region 9 for growing if that helps. Much thanks in advance!

[bigfoot]

I am NO EXPERT, but good information for the experts will be how close are you to the coast. Most bamboos do not well with the salt air. I am 100 yards from the ocean and our seabreeze bamboo does great it is one of the salt tolerant ones. We bought them as twigs, two from local dealers and two online and all four went from 3 feet tall to well over 20 feet in 3 years, now between 30 to 40 feet tall although the tops are now just sticks from the wind. Hurricanes like Mathew really beat them up, but they came back pretty quickly but Michael really beat them up, but they are coming back just real slowly this time. Enough leaves came back quickly to get us some shade, but they still are not full and thick like before Mathew. One of the rich houses on the beach had huge bamboo professional planted and cared for that was not salt tolerant and same thing you describe some died most never could keep healthy leaves, after a few years they removed them. I would love to have saved them, I do not know if they trashed them or someone took them back to a nursery inland.

[Glen]

I second the comments made in the previous post.

Moso is a difficult bamboo to grow well in most areas. It seems to have very specific environmental preferences. Even if it is happy, it will take many years to get large enough to replace trees. I have grown many bamboos over the years, and Moso is certainly one of the most difficult, unless you happen to have the right climate.

With bamboo, I usually just plant right into the native soil, without any amendments. I then like to mulch with some kind of organic material, like tree leaves. Fertilizer is applied to the surface.

It would help if you were more specific about your location. Briefly, in subtropical areas, running bamboos tend to perform poorly, and sufficiently cold hardy Bambusa species are usually the best choices.

If you are in a "solid" 9a or warmer zone, these are some of your best bets for fast growth and reasonable cold tolerance (no particular order):
Bambusa textilis, all forms
Bambusa ventricosa, all forms including 'Clone X'
Bambusa malingensis
Bambusa emeiensis, all forms
Bambusa chungii

[Cooper12]

I second the comments made in the previous post.

Moso is a difficult bamboo to grow well in most areas. It seems to have very specific environmental preferences. Even if it is happy, it will take many years to get large enough to replace trees. I have grown many bamboos over the years, and Moso is certainly one of the most difficult, unless you happen to have the right climate.

With bamboo, I usually just plant right into the native soil, without any amendments. I then like to mulch with some kind of organic material, like tree leaves. Fertilizer is applied to the surface.

It would help if you were more specific about your location. Briefly, in subtropical areas, running bamboos tend to perform poorly, and sufficiently cold hardy Bambusa species are usually the best choices.

If you are in a "solid" 9a or warmer zone, these are some of your best bets for fast growth and reasonable cold tolerance (no particular order):
Bambusa textilis, all forms
Bambusa ventricosa, all forms including 'Clone X'
Bambusa malingensis
Bambusa emeiensis, all forms
Bambusa chungii

maybe Sinobambusa intermedia? I read it does well in Hawaii

[Alan_L]

All I can add: In general with any new plants I put into the ground (not only bamboo), brown leaves almost never means "needs more water" unless the plant has gone through a period of drooping or curled leaves already (the next stage after that is brown leaves).