I agree the problem could be with roots. I wonder if voles eat Tradescantia? They were the culprits that progressively wiped out a bunch of my perennials in the front garden, like Echinacea, Baptisia, helianthus 'Lemon Queen', all the Sedums, Salvia 'Black & blue', a few Hostas, and many of the Phlox paniculatas. Also, almost all the bulbs except Daffs. They would yellow and look progressively worse, as the voles destroyed the roots. If voles do eat Tradescantia, that might be a case where they're doing the gardener a favor!

Hey Toni, thanks for your complements on my plants. Beleive it or not, all of my plants with the exception of the Aussie FIngerlime have been grown from seed. As a matter of fact, the Grapefruits were personally selected and liberated by me :) . I was out in AZ at the end of 2001, I was out for a evening drive with my wife and sister in law, we went to the highest point in Phoenix, then on the way back I passed a former manson with a radio station billboard on it with some sort of event going on at the grounds. It had a semi circular driveway and the entire very large front lawn was fileld with quite old Grapefruit trees, all seemingly the same type. When I went 3/4 of the way around I stoped said what the hell, jumped out looked at a nice looking tree and picked 2 grapefruits off the tree, the biggest and best ones I could find, and tossed them into the car. I had to wait 1.5 months for the box for some reason to come back to NY that I shipped em in but they were intact and whole. I had the seeds of one of the grapefruits planted for me by a friend and co-worker, since he had better facilities and room for that. Once they gre we split up the bunch. I kept 3 seedling and the other 2 went with him. I think he has one tree left. The other 3 have been growing with me ever since. Grapefruits #1 & 2 were so close together that I decided no to seperate them, they seem sto be doing great otherwise so it has never been a worry. The Key Limes were a bit simpler. Basically I bought a bag of "Susie" Key Limes in 2004, made a key Lime pie, saved the seeds, 15 seedlings grew. I lost 10 of them when I went away for 5 days and the pot they were in was not watered while I was gone. I planted the remainnig 5. One died in a month, another died suddenly of mysterious leaf loss the next year. Now of course I had a Key Lime almost die of the same mystery. The Lemon was planted September of 2005. I palnted 6 seeds,only 1 came up. I thought I had a second plant but it turned out initally to look like a weed. I figured I would let the weed keep the lemon company for a while. I was almost ready to pull the weed and then it flowered, then about a month later I found a whole bunch of small thai peppers growing on it...lol. It was a seedling for when I planted some in the same pot 2 years previous. As you can tell I just stuck the seed in existing dirt. The Kumquat I bought at the local Stop and Shop in December of 2005 and got 2 seedlings from that. I will be transplanting them soon. The Aussie FIngerlime I bought from a place in South Carolina. I will be looking up the name of the place when I get to work tomorrow. Anyway that is my story, so no grafts except on the Aussie, all is from seed. VTY -Mark

Hi Ian, Had you ever changed the earlier mix? That may have been a problem there too. It certainly looks much better, great save. Pardon me, but why would you want to cut this stem? Especially since Pepe says he can see a peduncle on its tip (which I can't see from here). Wouldn't you want to give that a chance to bloom? I know I would. I have found these long, crazy Kerrii stems are pliable when young & can be lightly curled, say around a trellis or wire hoop. Tho' that may cause it to bleed white sap, looks like Elmer's glue. A spray of water will stop the white sap from leaking out further.

I have struggled with keeping my lucky bamboo stalks in the condition I got them in. Unfortunately I didn't find any real explanation on the internet, or even on this forum as to why the stems began turning yellow suddenly. I had the stalks for a year at this point and they had all been doing great. They were always kept in the same spot, it wasn't too cold (I live in San Diego), and I always gave them only a couple inches of purified water (the bamboo does not need a lot of water this is a lot of people's mistake). I have had stalks that turn yellow at the top, at the bottom, and on the leaves. My best advice is this: purified water is great for them, (i think it would be fine with regular water too it may get some added nutrients this way,you can fluctuate the watering routine). I recently started setting a glass of water out over night so the chlorine would evaporate (there's always going to be chlorine in our water, even some bottled water). When leaves get yellow its probably better to leave them on until they get dry but I normally do pluck some off just because I get sick of looking at them. If the stalks start getting yellow at the top use a razor blade and cut off yellow part and tiny bit of green part (this has worked for me and the stem stayed green). I have tried to cut off yellow from the bottom and sometimes those live. I am giving them fertilizer from time to time. One day I finally realized why multiply bamboo stalks were turning yellow suddenly? It was because the water was gross, and dirty. I never emptied it, just kept putting more water in each time; even though the water was used up almost to the bottom each time before I put fresh water in, it was still getting stale. I lost about 5 stalks up to this point, as soon as I changed the water the stalks stopped getting yellow. I don't have pebbles in some of my bamboo stalk displays, so it's easy to drain out old water. Maybe pebbles possibly help the water not get so gross. I have been growing lucky bamboo stalks (really called Dracaena sanderiana or Dracaena braunii) now for about 6 years and I have had one specific display now for about 4 years and it continues to do good. I have 8 different displays in my home some are 3' straight long stalks, others short stalks. I have twisted stalks and curly stalks. They are so beautiful and take such little room. Don't put in direct sunlight. Low light or bright light is best (although with bright light I have noticed the leaves turn more yellowish green-still healthy leaves. Bathrooms and darker areas in home where plants normally die from lack of light are great for lucky bamboo displays. Hope this information will be useful to people who are having trouble growing these.. This post was edited by amydykstra on Fri, Aug 15, 14 at 13:01