Ikz5ia, Thx for the other variety recommendations. These came to me as a free gift. And they were so pretty! Yes all parts above teh soil are brown on castillion and teh original culm has lost all it's variagated color as well. kudzu9, Potted up fall of 2005. So I don't think pot bound. I'm a bit of an over waterer but I've tried to use restraint. I don't think they got too dry. My alocasia is not too dry an it's more of a heavy drinker. My GBOP doesn't need a lot of water and is happy and not too wet. The bamboo has been in a south window for most of the winter. I recently moved it to a west window. It actually shares a pot with the black bamboo so the conditions are exactly the same. But one is thriving and having a growth spurt and not the other. Thx for the info so far. If you think of anything else LMK Karen

Sounds to me like she gave you dying lucky bamboo, the mushy one is a goner. I would throw away the other one also. Go out and buy her a new plant, they dont cost that much and you'll make her happy. Taking care of someones plants is a hard job, its like leaving your pets with someone :>) Christine

Amyly Ann, here are some care instructions on found online. Lets not even think about fertilizer right now, the plant doesn't need it yet as it has to recover from all the messing around were are doing to it, and it is in new soil so it is fine on fertilizer right now. http://houseplants.about.com/od/typesofhouseplants/a/LuckyBamboo.htm Caring for Your Lucky Bamboo Light: Lucky bamboo prefer bright, filtered sunlight, such as found under a rainforest canopy. Avoid direct sunlight as it will scorch the leaves. They are more tolerant of too little light than too much. If the plant begins to stretch, however, or the green fades, provide more light. Temperature: Lucky bamboo likes warmer temperatures of between 65ºF and 90ºF. Do not place the plants in front of air conditioning or heating vents. Potting Media: In addition to water, lucky bamboo can be grown in a well-drained, rich potting soil. Keep the soil moist, but not soaking. Water as you would any Dracaena species. The Dracaena genus has provided some of the sturdiest houseplants available today, including the every-popular D. deremensis. These plants, which are native to Africa, have been used as houseplants since at least the mid-19th century and are still popular because they possess the single most important quality in a houseplant: they’re pretty and fairly hard to kill. D. deremensis work as single windowsill plants or as part of a mixed group, with their various leaf patterns complementing and overlapping one another. Growing Conditions: Light: Low light is fine, but they like it a little brighter. New leaves will narrow if there isn’t enough light. Water: Keep evenly moist, although if you have to err, do so on the dry side. (But keeping it too dry will result in brown leaf tips.) Use non-fluoridated water as they are sensitive to fluoride. Temperature: Keep above 50ºF if possible. They do best in the mid-70ºs to low 80ºs. Soil: Loose, well-drained potting mix. Fertilizer: During growing, fertilizer with slow-release fertilizer or use a 20-20-20 liquid fertilizer at half-strength every month. Propagation: They root readily from cuttings. Push tip cuttings into warm soil and keep moist. They will usually root readily without use of rooting hormone. They should root within a month. Repotting: Repot annually into larger pots with fresh, free-draining potting soil. Grower's Tips: D. deremensis is a great plant for low-light conditions, but beware of low humidity. If the humidity drops below 40 percent for an extended time, the tips of the leaves can turn brown. Try misting the plant every day to provide humidity. It’s also sensitive to fluoride and excessive salts, so try to use nonfluoridated water and flush monthly to remove fertilizer salts. Growth may cease completely below 70ºF, but will resume when warmer weather returns. Iron deficiency can result in yellowing leaves between the veins—treat with an iron drench. They are susceptible to thrips and mealybugs.

Basal sprouts/suckers and water sprouts have a significant impact on the top growth of whatever stem they're attached to. Juvenile tissues near the tree's root to shoot transition zone are naturally more vigorous than distal tissues, so the tree will tend to funnel energy to the juvenile parts while [ontogenetically] older tissues are deprived of what would have been funneled to them were it not for the juvenile growth closer to the transition zone. What you have going on also jars the eye because it looks so different from what would be considered one of the tree's 'features - the plaited trunk; so, there are two reasons to remove the low growth. The green to brown change in the periderm (bark) is a natural part of the plant's morphology. As the outer layers of the periderm die, they become cork-like; then, as the stems and branches thicken, the outermost dead parts of the periderm develop fissures and furrows to produced the aged look we envision when we think of 'bark'. Unless it contains supplemental nutrients, container media doesn't really undergo depletion of the nutrients locked in the hydrocarbon chains of which soil particles are comprised. To some degree, soil organisms break down tissues like cellulose more readily than some other tissue types, lignin, the part that makes trees woody and stems of more herbaceous plants stiff, for example; but this doesn't necessarily mean more available nutrients. If there are microorganisms breaking down soil particles, nutrients, especially N, can become reimmobilized within the very bodies of the soil life breaking down the nutrients. The increase in growth when a medium is changed is due more to an increase in media volume (in the case of potting up), or improvement in the medium's structure, specifically in the ratio of air:water held within the medias pores. Container media which hasn't been nutritionally amended is a poor source of nutrition, no matter how old it is. Even most container media that HAVE been precharged with nutrients contain such a small amount of nutrients that they too should be considered to be a poor source of nutrition. If you keep your focus on the physical structure of the media you use to at least the degree you can water your plants to beyond the point of total soil saturation w/o the need to be concerned the medium will remain soggy for an extended period (and result in poor root function/health), you'll have taken a very large step forward. Keeping your plants' root systems healthy is a prerequisite if you are to maintain your plants in a high state of vitality (health), so what you provide as a home for your plants' roots is no small matter in the overview of their care. If you decide to repot, timing is an important consideration. E.g., if you live in the northern hemisphere, repotting now is probably not a good idea. Where I live, in Michigan, I plan to repot my tropical trees just before to just after the summer solstice. A money tree would be repotted in May or early June. While timing might not be a life/death determining factor, working WITH the plant's natural rhythms is decidedly better than ignoring them. More on repotting if/when you have interest. Al