A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2004 "Lucky" Baboo Tree

Hi,
I purchased a 2" tall Baboo tree the kind that "supposed to be for Good Luck". There were simple directions...prefers water, rocks, pebbles to or potting soil. So, I started off with a regualar sized glass vase put in a layer of pebbles, a layer of potting soil, another layer of pebbles and filled it about 1/2 full of water. I must say, the pebbles gives it good support if nothing else. Is there anything is I can do for good growth or did I do anything wrong?

Hi syl726,
I just wanted to let you know,
I was going to move your post from
the Mystery plant Section and into
the House plant Section.....I believe
that's a house plant and we have several
gardeners here, that frequent more the
house plant section and some stick
to that section alone and so your
question can be answered a little bit
better by those gardeners going through there.
Bill, or Will Creed can give you some pointers on them, I know several other gardeners here have
those too, so, if you give them a bit of time
to come through, I"m sure someone will get you some help...
If you do a Forum Search and type those words in or dracaena that'll also get you some info too.
Let us know how you do with it!!

Happy Gardening!
Weezie

What you bought is something called "Lucky bamboo" ,it's not really bamboo it's actually a variety of Dracaena. The Chinese "say" these bring good luck, it's been a fad the past year or so really.

Some people grow them in plain water, some grow in potting soil. I grow my little one in a 3 inch tall,3" wide glass vase with about an inch of water in it and use small pebbles to hold it firmly in place.I add a drop or two of miracal grow in it every few months. It will stand low light but likes medium light, no direct sun.

I'd either plant it in straight water or soil

Happy new year!

Tom

Tom is right. You should either grow them in plain water (with a little fertilizer) or in soil, not a combination of the two.

Provide lots of bright indirect light and warm temperatures above 60 degrees for best results.

I think what you are doing is fine. I have my stalks in plain water with rocks around them to stabilize. Nothing really good or bad has come from using the rocks besides having a better display and more stability.

I have 3 different lucky bamboo water vases.
I've had the first one for 3 years now - it's been growing in the same vase with glass half marbles in the bottom for stability. I had it growing in a dark corner of my bedroom, and while it did very nicely, I noticed the leaves werent' as dark as they could be so I moved it, last week, into the bathroom with indirect light from the window. You can see the lighter leaves in the picture, and that the stems are about the size you were talking about.

lucky bamboo

Bonsai,

It is the soil and water together that is a problem. Pebbles and water together are fine.

Whoops, I kinda figured that out after I re-read the post, wondering why everybody was commenting on soil. Sorry about that. Anyway water and pebbles work well!