I use all things organic. This year I am going to give my Fargesia Murielae weekly gallons as well as foliar feedings of Maxicrop. Check this product out too. My FM appears to be a dwarf to me and Maxicrop really helps with the vitality (although mine appears quite healthy), provides a longer growing season, and makes plants withstand temps better. I love the stuff and used fish fertilizers before I found it. Both seaweed and fish are great stuff. I've even made my own with fish heads and had killer tomatoes that year. Besides top dressing with manure this summer for the FM, I'm also adding used coffee grounds to compensate for any nitrogen leeched from the hardwood mulch that was used on it this winter. (Also, earthworms love coffee grounds and will help deliver all those nutrients down to the roots while aerating the soil. Use chemicals and kill your earthworms. Use your fish fertilizer and they will thank you.)

If all this fails to provide any vertical growth with the FM for yet another year, I'm gonna try gibberelic acid which is used to germinate hard to germinate plants, make bigger fruits, and hopefully add vertical growth to my FM. Its use has been approved by the organic certifying agencies too.

Let us know what all you are doing and if you have a sec, let me know if you have any fast growing clumping bamboo you'd like to share! :0

My bamboo books advise against sea-derived products, as the salt content is detrimental to bamboo (apparently, the Japanese use seaweed to control grove spread). I, too, am an organic-only gardener, and use seaweed and fish emulsions for everything--except bamboo. I killed a black bamboo with liquid seaweed before I had read the warning, and what I read only confirmed what I saw--leaf tips burned within days, and the bamboo never recovered. Supposedly, some bamboos are more sensitive than others, but I'm not willing to find out which among my collection are tolerant!

Can you cite your reference, Akebono? Was the emulsion you used the type you dilute 1 tsp in a gallon of water? How much salt can be in that? Perhaps they were talking about fresh seaweed which is plentiful in Japan?

I just did a quick google and found this bamboo nursery online:

http://www.sevenarrowsfarm.com/bamboo_information.htm

which had the following in its "Bamboo Care" section, and I quote:

"Â BEGINNING OF MARCH (or when weather warms)
Apply an organic liquid fertilizer, high in nitrogen, such as liquid seaweed to your bamboo groves. The first number in the series of three numbers found on any fertilizer package indicates the percentage of nitrogen in the product. You are looking for a ratio of approximately 3:1:2. Fertilizers formulated for lawns are usually quite compatible with bamboo. Be sure to follow the directions given by the manufacturer when applying the product. Apply the organic liquid feed every week until May.

 BEGINNING OF MAY

Apply an organic fertilizer to feed the groves throughout the remainder of the year. Again, most organic lawn fertilizers will have the perfect nutrient formulation for your bamboo. NEVER use commercial weed & feed formulations. This will kill your bamboo!"

As I said earlier for nitrogen enrichment, spent coffee grounds are well-known for providing this and there are compost recipes for using it, too. I'm using it to top dress prior to manure to compensate for nitrogen leeched from hardwood mulch used over winter.

Newbie to this site and to bamboo in general. After months of research, I went out and bought 16 Fargesia Scabrida plants in the 2 gallon pot size from the Bamboo Garden....which were great to work with. The plants have been in the ground out here in NJ for like two weeks now. I just added some Alaskan fish emulsion to my plants, and wanted some advice.

I mixed @1.5 tablespoon per 2 gallons of water. Out of that 2 gallon watering can, I dispersed it over 4 plants, approx. 1/2 gallon per plant. Was this too much of a concentration for each of the plants??

Also, how often should I use this for, and in what frequency? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.