Lucky Bamboo's Many Meanings, Plus Care Tips
Lucky Bamboo (Dracaena sanderiana) is a houseplant—not real bamboo! It’s popular because of its ability to grow in low light in the home or office. Learn more about how to care for Lucky Bamboo for years of good health and fortune!
What Is Lucky Bamboo?
The plant we commonly call “lucky bamboo” isn’t a type of bamboo at all. Despite its appearance, lucky bamboo (Dracaena sanderiana or braunii) is actually more closely related to succulents than to bamboo, which is a type of grass. Lucky bamboo is native to Africa, but is now cultivated around the world as a good-luck houseplant.
Why is the Plant Called Lucky Bamboo?
In Chinese lore, lucky bamboo symbolizes good fortune, and feng shui practitioners use it to attract positive energy. The number of stalks have different meanings:
- 2 stalks symbolize love or double luck
- 3 stalks bring three kinds of luck: happiness, long life, and wealth
- 4 stalks are bad luck; they bring negative energy and are thought to be a death wish!
- 5 stalks balance 5 areas of health: emotional, spiritual, mental, intuitive, and physical
- 6 stalks attract prosperity and wealth
- 7 stalks promote good health
- 8 stalks are good for success, growth, and fertility
- 9 stalks bring great luck
- 10 stalks bestow a complete and perfect life
- 21 stalks are for great wealth and enduring health
How to Start Growing Lucky Bamboo
Most people who grow lucky bamboo indoors have the plant in water. Here’s how:
- Use a layer of pebbles to stabilize the stems of the plant and hold it in place.
- Add enough water to keep the roots covered. (If it hasn’t grown roots yet, the plant will need at least 3 inches of water.)
- Distilled or filtered water is best, especially if you have fluoride or chlorine in your tap water. These chemicals can cause the green tips of the leaves to burn and turn brown.
- The container must have drainage holes; while you water frequently, do not let it sit in water or become waterlogged.
- A clear container makes it easy to see the roots and check the water level, but it can also cause algae to grow, so you may want to use a colored container.
- You’ll need to keep raising the water level as the plants grow to keep it above the roots.
Lucky Bamboo Care Tips
Lucky bamboo is a very easy-going plant that doesn’t require much attention. Follow these tips for success with your plant:
- Change the water every 7 to 10 days, cleaning the pebbles and container as well.
- Normally, lucky bamboo will grow fine without any fertilizer, but if you wish, you can give it a small drop of houseplant fertilizer monthly.
- Since this plant grows in the shade of taller trees in nature, keep it out of direct sunlight. Bright, indirect light is best. If it starts to fade to a pale green it needs more light.
- Lucky bamboo likes warm temperatures, in the 65° to 90°F range.
- Caution—this plant is toxic to cats!
- If you wish, you can transplant lucky bamboo in the soil.
If the stalks get too tall, cut them off and start a new plant by rooting the stalks in water. Keep them in a shady area until new roots form, then plant them in soil or pebbles. Tie a gold or red ribbon around the stalks to hold them together and to symbolize good fortune.
Young stalks can be trained to curl by using wire to hold them or you can try blocking light on three sides of the plant causing it to grow toward the light. Keep turning as it grows to form the curve. This takes time, but makes for a fun project. Pliable stalks can also be braided or twisted together.
Many times Lucky Bamboo plants are given as an auspicious gift. We hope these tips give you years of good fortune growing Lucky Bamboo! Do you have a lucky bamboo plant? Let us know in the comments!
Robin Sweetser
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My Lucky Bamboo is 6-7 years old. It's over the kitchen sink and until last Spring it was doing great and growing into the curtain above. I decided to give it a haircut and trim/reroot the bottom parent part. Everything grew roots but about half of the parent part turned yellow and died. The top parts are doing great and after about 6 months the parent part finally recovered. I thought I had killed it!
Question: I use water filtered through a Brita. Is this ok? It's had brown tips from shortly after I got it.
I have had this plant for maybe 3-4 years now. I keep it upstairs in the master bathroom window which faces east. Watering it every 2 weeks if I remember. I take it with us in our motorhome when we vacation. Easy to care for..slow grower. Had been watering with bottled water but leaves were turning brown…so switched to distilled.
It didn’t bring us luck at all when we hit an elk in September 2022!
I have a lucky bamboo plant and it turned yellow looks like it’s going to die how do I save this
Consider your watering habits, including the type of water you are using (tap, distilled, etc.). If the plant is being grown in water, it could be that you need to change the water more frequently to prevent the build up of harmful bacteria. Try replacing all the water and see if that helps.
I do appreciate your comment about the chlorine and floride in the water - but I would have liked to have heard how to prevent or how to stop what happened to my lucky bamboo! It was a single shoot that I found lying on the floor at West Edm Mall of all places. Took it home and immediately put it into a container as you describe with rocks on the bottom. It was nicely curled and seemed to do well considering it;s start-out!
Suddenly after more than a full year in water in my bathroom where I was recommended to put it, the water was changed relatively regularly - the whole stem turned yellow very quickly. We tried to cut and save the stem, but then we were lucky to find an article that explained how to manage to keep the
top leafy part still alive! That is all that is left of my lucky bamboo with it's interesting curled stalk.
Are you using distilled or filtered water? That’s important for the plant’s health.
Mine has 9 stalks, bought through The Grommet a year ago. Never changed water but I use bottled water. I keep it in the bathroom window which faces west, but filtered light through the forest. It is very happy there. I take it with us in the motorhome on trips and it loves that too. Not sure it brings “luck” but it’s a stunningly beautiful plant!
I've had a single stalk plant in a glass vase with no gravel for 5 years and have never changed the water.
I've just added water to keep the roots covered.
One time it started fading, I changed from tap water to filtered water and it recovered.
I just bought my first Lucky Bamboo. I'm excited to see it grow.
I bought one a few months ago, and it was doing fine. However, recently I noticed that the tips of some of the leaves have turned brown, but the stalks still are a nice green. What am I doing wrong?
