Lucky bamboo is famous for its curls. But what many people don't know is that those curls are not natural, Yes you have to put in some effort to make them go into spiral direction because its almost impossible to get them curly without proper guidance. There are two things that makes lucky bamboo turn toward a required direction - light and gravity(earth's pulling force). Because of the rigid and straight stalks of the bamboo its little difficult to use gravity, so you can follow any of the three techniques I am describing below which uses light source to get those curls.

Starting with most advanced which requires more care and effort to basic technique for beginners.

Bucket Technique.This a typical method used by most professional lucky bamboo growers and is good if you have many sticks.

• Take a small bucket, put some water and keep your lucky bamboo in it.
• Now make a slant depression in the ground big enough to hold the bucket in one place at a tilted angle, around 40-45 degrees. (see! Its lot of work)
• Make sure the source of light is right about the bucket, or just keep it outside in a shade.
• Now just sit back and relax, and keep turning the bucket slightly once every week(its just like making champagne).

Box Technique. Most of you can do this with little effort. All you need is some cardboard and luck bamboo :-)

• Keep your lucky bamboo is vase so that the sticks are stacked straight.
• Make a cardboard box big enough to hold whole vase and sticks inside it.


• Make a small hole (few inches diameter) on any one side of the box near the top.
• Keep the vase with lucky bamboo in it and place this box where light can enter only from the hole.
• Turn the box slightly every week.

Window Technique. This is for really lazy people or who don't care much about the symmetry of the curls. Like the name suggests just keep the vase near window and turn it once every week. Just make sure that your plant is NOT receiving direct sunlight because that can cause it to turn yellow and die. You can read my earlier posts 5 Tips to take care of your Lucky Bamboo and 10 symptoms that can tell you that your lucky bamboo needs your help! for other caring tips.

Just one final advice to all my gardener friends. Lucky bamboo grows very slowly, only couple of inches every year. So just relax and wait for some time before you see any results.