The stiffest tree is most easily cracked while Bamboo survives by bending with the wind

What Is Lucky Bamboo?

Known as lucky bamboo for centuries, this tough resilient plant is actually dracaena sanderiana, a member of the lily family. A tropical plant, it is native to the rain forests of Cameroon, Africa, and Southeast Asia.

The lucky bamboo meaning for number of stalks plays an important role in feng shui application and use. According to feng shui principles, the lucky bamboo plant attracts auspicious chi energy. It’s a living example of feng shui elements water, wood, and earth. When placed in the correct pot, this easy care plant can introduce fire and metal for a complete balance of the five elements. Lucky bamboo plants are one of the most recognizable and popular feng shui cures.

Meaning of Lucky Bamboo Plant Stalk Numbers

Much of the luck that is associated with bamboo comes from the number of bamboo stalks bunched together or woven together into an arrangement. The number of lucky bamboo stalks determines the kinds of energy the Chinese good luck plant attracts into your home and life. The more stalks in the planter, the greater the blessing of good fortune and luck.

A Single Bamboo Stalk Is a Lucky Log

This is a certain kind of bamboo that looks like a log with no roots. You’ll want to place one end in water so it can grow leaves and continuously produce new leaves. Lucky log bamboo is symbolic of a strong life that’s filled with prosperity. This plant is a favorite for businesses to give as gifts, especially to other companies since it promises to keep the business growing. Some varieties produce fragrant white flowers in addition to the healthy green leaves.

Two Bamboo Stalks Symbolize Love

People often send two stalks of bamboo as an expression of love. This number also is said to double your luck.

Three Lucky Bamboo Stalks Symbolize Three Kinds of Luck

The plant of three bamboo stalks is one of the most favorite number combinations to have in your home.

It brings three kinds of luck to you:

• Happiness: Fu
• Long Life: Soh
• Wealth: Lu (Career promotions)

Four Bamboo Stalks Draw Negative Energy

In the Chinese language, the word used as four sounds very similar to the word used for death. The number four has the same kind of connotation and draws sha (negative) energy. You’ll never find a four-stalked bamboo plant in the Chinese culture; much less ever give one for a gift. To do so is extremely rude and would be interpreted that you’re giving the recipient a death wish.

Five Bamboo Stalks Attract Health

With the number five, there’s one stalk for every area of your life that can bring you wealth. The overall energy attracted to a five bamboo stalk plant is one of health, which is needed to benefit from any of the five areas of your life. You’ll want to have a healthy career, healthy relationships, and more. The five stalk bamboo reinforces each of the five areas of your life that can influence the level of wealth for each area.

• Emotional
• Intuitive
• Mental
• Physical
• Spiritual

Six Bamboo Stalks Attract Prosperity

Six in the Chinese language also sounds like the word luck. Six stalks of bamboo attracts prosperity and advantages to achieve greater wealth.

Seven Bamboo Stalks Bestow Good Health

Seven stalks of bamboo bestows good health to you.

Eight Bamboo Stalks Foster Growth

Once more the Chinese language plays a big part in this number’s law of attraction. Eight sounds like the word used for grow or thrive. Eight stalks also improves fertility.

Nine Bamboo Stalks Symbolize Luck

This is the symbol for good luck and bestows great luck to whoever receives a nine stalk plant.

Ten Bamboo Stalks Represent Completion

If you have a ten stalk bamboo arrangement then the wish for you is to feel complete and complacent. The hope is that you find your life to be perfect. The sender wants you to have everything in life just as you envision and desire.

Twenty-One Bamboo Stalks Wish Enduring Health

If someone has gifted you with a plant with this number of bamboo stalks, then the well wishes for you and your family are being delivered in a very powerful overall blessing for great wealth and enduring health.

Bamboo Symbolism

Bamboo has long been the Chinese symbol for strength. Many admire the bamboo’s qualities of fast-growth and resilience. In Chinese, lucky bamboo is known as Fu Gwey Zhu.

• Fu: Luck and fortune
• Gwey: Power and honor
• Zhu: Bamboo

Give a Lucky Bamboo Gift

Many people give this kind of plant for housewarming gifts, birthdays, anniversaries, grand openings, awards, achievements, and other auspicious occasions. Receiving this plant as a gift increases your luck. Choose an elaborate woven lattice design or an arrangement of individual stalks twisted and tied together with red ribbon.

Creating Harmony in Your Home

You can use lucky bamboo to help you achieve harmony in your home. Use the meanings for the number of stalks to ensure you select the best plant for your need. Never place plants in a bedroom, even if it’s a lucky bamboo. This creates too much yang energy and will have an inauspicious effect. One of the best locations to place a lucky bamboo plant is in the east or south sector of your home or office.

Best Places for Lucky Bamboo in Your Home and Office

You can place lucky bamboo in your home or office to attract good feng shui energy. Deciding where to put lucky bamboo in your home or office is easy once you’ve decided what you wish to accomplish with this valuable feng shui tool.

Lucky Bamboo on Living Room Tables Moves Chi

While you can place a lucky bamboo plant in the southeast or east corner of a living room, you can also place it in the south sector. The wood element (lucky bamboo) will feed the fire element ruling the south sector.

• Set the plant on a coffee table to prevent chi energy from accumulating. A rectangle or square coffee table often becomes an obstacle and prevents chi energy from moving freely around the room. The plant will attract the chi energy to lift above the coffee table and move freely.
• An end table or a sofa table are also good choices for placement options.

Lucky Bamboo Centerpiece in Dining Room Promotes Abundance

Place your bamboo plant as the centerpiece for the dining table so the energy it attracts is doubled. The dining room is the seat of the family abundance. Placing a lucky bamboo plant in this room is an auspicious addition. An appropriate feng shui dining room design will have a mirror that reflects the dining table to double the abundance.

Lucky Bamboo in Kitchen Represents Happiness

A kitchen that falls in the southeast or east sector, is a great place for a lucky bamboo plant.

• If the kitchen isn’t in either of these sectors, determine the room’s east or southeast corners and place the plant in one of those corners.
• You can place this plant in areas where stagnant chi may be pooling, such as above cabinets or even on top of a refrigerator.
• A kitchen dining table located in either sector can use a lucky bamboo plant for a centerpiece.
• A three-stalk arrangement works in this room since it represents happiness, long life, and wealth.
• Both five stalks and seven stalks symbolize health, a great energy for a kitchen.

Lucky Bamboo in Bathroom Neutralizes Sha Chi

The wastewater of a bathroom generates negative chi (sha chi). Plants in the bathroom can neutralize the water since wood exhausts water.

• A shelf over the toilet is a great location for the plant.
• Place the bamboo arrangement on the back of the toilet for the best placement.
• A clay pot will add more control over the waste water since the earth element destroys water.

Placing Lucky Bamboo for Good Feng Shui

You can take advantage of the good feng shui energy that a lucky bamboo plant attracts. Select the ideal placement for your home or office based on southeast, east, and south sectors as well as your personal kua number

Lucky Bamboo and Feng Shui

One of the most popular feng shui cures, lucky bamboo activates stagnant energy and enhances the flow of positive energy, or auspicious chi, throughout your home or workplace. It is important to take proper care of your lucky bamboo to ensure its health and vitality.

What Does Lucky Bamboo Symbolize in Feng Shui?

A strong symbol of good luck, lucky bamboo signifies good fortune, health, and prosperity. Used in feng shui, a plant usually has a combination of all the five elements, which are represented by:

• Wood: Bamboo plant
• Earth: Stones or pebbles
• Metal: Container itself (if made of glass is considered metal element), or you can attach small a metal figure or coin to container
• Water: Grow medium
• Fire: Red ribbon tied around bamboo stalks or container

Number of Stalks in Lucky Bamboo Symbolism

You can use lucky bamboo to address specific areas in your life that you wish to enhance with good fortune. For example, the number of stalks in an arrangement of lucky bamboo has a specific meaning assigned to them. These include such things as ensuring a happy marriage, success in academic studies, promotion in career, and so on.

Care for Lucky Bamboo

The popularity of Lucky Bamboo has continued to grow over the past several decades, making it one of the most popular house plants of the time. These easy-to-grow plants require very little care and generally are grown using hydroponics methods. To care for lucky bamboo you will need to place it in a location with indirect light, use small stones or pebbles instead of soil, and feed it with a solution of diluted plant food.

What to Do When Lucky Bamboo Turns Yellow

Lucky bamboo plants can develop yellow leaves or yellow stalks for a number of reasons. The key to saving a plant when the yellow appears is to assess the cause and take action to restore the plant to health. There are four possible causes for a lucky bamboo turning yellow outside of disease: water, light, fertilizer, or temperature.

Water and Yellowing Lucky Bamboo Leaves and Stalks

One of the first culprits to investigate for yellowing leaves or stalk is the water. Typically, lucky bamboo plants are kept in a vase of water with a substrate, like rocks, but some are grown in soil containers. The source of water is an important consideration for the care of your plant.

Exposure to Chemicals in Tap Water Can Lead to Lucky Bamboo Plant Dying

You never want to use tap water for your Lucky Bamboo plant. This will set up failure before you start since tap water contains chemicals, such as chlorine and fluoride, that can be harmful to plants. Consistent exposure to the chemicals in the water can lead to your lucky bamboo plant dying.

Use Filtered, Distilled, Spring, or Rain Water

Break out a bottle of distilled water or spring water for your bamboo. If you have a garden and use a rain collecting system, you can also use that water for your lucky bamboo plant. Just make sure the water isn’t traveling over an asphalt roof since chemicals could be in the run off. 

• Never use cold water.
• Use water that is room temperature.

Change the Water Every Two Weeks

The measure of health for a lucky bamboo plant can be as simple as fresh water.  The fresh water is vital to healthy plant life since it provides nourishment with nitrogen and oxygen. In addition, fresh water contains trace elements that the plant needs.

• Change the water every two weeks for best results.
• Avoid stagnant water (a feng shui no-no).
• Old water sets up various conditions for bacteria, fungus, and especially mold.
• Change the water immediately if it turns dark, murky, cloudy, green, black, or smells foul.

Keep Bamboo Planted in Moist Soil

If your plant is in soil, add rocks on top of the soil to prevent soil displacement when you water. The soil should be maintained at a moderate moistness.

• The rule of thumb for testing if your in-soil plant needs watering is to stick your forefinger into the soil up to the first joint (1″). If the soil feels dry, then it’s time to water.
• Be careful not to overwater and that the plant container has good drainage. Since the plant is in a soil bed, you’ll need to mist the leaves every two or three days to maintain a healthy plant.

Direct Sunlight Can Cause Lucky Bamboo Leaves to Yellow

If the leaves on your plant appear to have turned yellow as though burned, the cause is most likely direct sunlight. The lucky bamboo cannot live in direct sunlight, but thrives in bright indirect light. If your plant is receiving direct sunlight, then you need to move it. By the same token, too little indirect light can make your plant become weak and its color will turn yellow or pale.

Place Lucky Bamboo Near a Window Out of Direct Sunlight

One of the popular locations for lucky bamboo is on a kitchen counter near a window or on a table by a window. You want to make sure that the plant doesn’t receive direct sunlight. The hot direct sunlight will basically burn the plant since its natural habitat is under the lush foliage of a rain forest.

Place in Best Feng Shui Locations

The best feng shui locations for a lucky bamboo plant are the East and Southeast (wood) sectors. If you need to activate the South sector of your home, then a wood element will fuel that element. Be sure whichever sector you use that your plant receives only indirect light.

change the water. This can work in some cases where the plant hasn’t soaked up too much fertilizer to kill it. However, in other cases, it might be too late to save the plant. This is especially true if it’s the stalk turning yellow instead of just the leaves.

Repotting Plants in Dirt Can Save a Dying Lucky Bamboo

The best approach for an over fertilized in-soil plant is to repot with fresh soil that doesn’t have any added fertilizer. The damage may have already been done, and the plant absorbed too much fertilizer. You’ll know within a few days if your plant will survive.

Incorrect Temperature and Humidity Can Cause Lucky Bamboo Plants to Die

If your lucky bamboo leaves are turning yellow and you’ve ruled out all the above possible causes, then it could as simple as too cool a temperature. The plant thrives best in temperatures between 65°F and 90°F.

Mist the Leaves to Increase Humidity

A low humidity environment is problematic. Remember, the plant’s natural environment is that of a very humid rainforest. Since the lucky bamboo prefers a humid climate, you may need to remedy a dry one by misting the leaves every two to three days. This will give the plant and leaves the high moisture it craves. This should stop the plant from turning yellow if low humidity is the cause.

How to Save a Dying Bamboo Plant

If you’ve tried all the recommendations and your plant is still on a decline with yellow leaves and stalk, it may be time for drastic last-ditch efforts. You can salvage your plant. Never throw it away without first trying one of the two propagation methods for salvaging what is typically an expensive plant.

Harvest and Root Leaves

If your plant has a few yellow leaves, then you can snip them with a pair of scissors. This is especially necessary if your plant is suffering from too much water or direct light. Better to remove them so new leaves can grow. However, if your lucky bamboo stalk is dying, then you have only one recourse, and that’s to cut the green sprouts and root.

1. Snip leaves below the growth node that protrudes from the stalk to keep intact. This is where new roots will form.
2. Dip the cut end of the sprout in a planting hormone to encourage root growth.
3. Fill a vase with water to hold the sprout(s) and allow them to grow roots.
4. Once there are plenty of roots, you can transplant the new lucky bamboo either into a water or soil-filled vase.

Saving a Bamboo Plant With a Dead Stalk

If the roots are still good but the upper part of the stalk is yellow, you can possibly salvage it.

The first thing to check when a plant begins to turn yellow is the root system. You can quickly assess its health by examining the roots. The color of healthy roots are reddish or orange. Diseased roots are brown, black, or gray and need to be removed by cutting off where they protrude from the stalk.

Cut off the yellow part along the line where green is still showing. Once the stalk is cut, it typically stops growing in height/length but will develop new sprouts that will grow vertically.

• Seal the cut part of the stalk with candle wax to prevent rotting and disease.
• Place the stalk either in water or in soil and care for it.

If the stalk continues to turn yellow and no new sprouts develop, the plant can’t be salvaged. It’s time to discard and buy a new plant. You can continue your original number of stalks to keep your chosen feng shui number.

Fertilizer Is Optional

Lucky bamboo does not require any regular fertilizer and can survive for years in nothing but clean water. If you do choose to fertilize your plant, use only fertilizers made for lucky bamboo. A plant food called PLANT O BOOST is popular with many growers of lucky bamboo plants.