Lucky Bamboo Meaning by Stalk Count: Eight Guides Agree on 2 and 4, but Split on 5 and 8
Lucky bamboo means good luck, and the stalk count names the wish: 2 for love, 3 for happiness, 4 unlucky. See where eight guides agree and where they split.
In short
- Lucky bamboo means good luck, and by tradition the stalk count names the wish: 2 for love, 3 for happiness, long life and wealth.
- It is Dracaena sanderiana, a tropical African shrub, not a bamboo.
- Four stalks are avoided because the Chinese word for four sounds like the word for death.
- Checked against: NC State Extension, Acta Horticulturae, BMJ.
Lucky bamboo means good luck, and by tradition the number of stalks says which kind: two stalks mean love, three mean happiness, long life and wealth, and four are avoided because the Chinese word for four sounds like the word for death. The plant is Dracaena sanderiana, a tropical African shrub that is unrelated to true bamboo, and it is sold with a feng shui story attached. Feng shui is a Chinese tradition, not a tested science, so every meaning below is tradition, and where guides disagree the disagreement is shown.
This page is part of our flower symbolism and meaning guide. It compares eight English-language guides that list stalk counts. I found no dated source behind any of the stalk meanings.
What does lucky bamboo mean by number of stalks?
Lucky bamboo is a gift plant, and the stalk count is the message. I compared eight English-language guides that list stalk counts: Lively Root, Bonsai Outlet, Verdant Lyfe, FNP, Symbol Sage, Garden Guides, Tumbleweed Plants and Nurserylive. All eight tie two stalks to love or partnership, and all eight mention four stalks as unlucky, two of them only as a hedge. Beyond that the meanings drift.
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| Stalks | What most guides say | Where the guides differ | Occasion Verdant Lyfe suggests |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | Love and partnership (8 of 8) | “Double luck” in Verdant Lyfe, Garden Guides and Tumbleweed; Symbol Sage adds marriage | Weddings, anniversaries, engagements, Valentine’s Day |
| 3 | Happiness, long life and wealth (6 of 8 give all three) | FNP gives happiness only; Garden Guides leaves happiness out | Housewarmings, birthdays, holidays |
| 4 | Mentioned as unlucky in all 8 (two only as a hedge); 7 of 8 link it to the word for death | Lively Root says only “bad luck”; Bonsai Outlet also lists “stable, strong or power” | Never given |
| 5 | Balance, harmony or good fortune across life (4 of 8): Verdant Lyfe, FNP and Symbol Sage tie five stalks to the five elements or five areas of life, and Tumbleweed gives balance and harmony across all areas of life | Wealth in Lively Root, Bonsai Outlet and Garden Guides, which lists balance as a second reading; Nurserylive ties the five areas of life to wealth | Get-well wishes, a stressful season |
| 6 | Money and prosperity (7 of 8) | Lively Root: good health and harmony. Bonsai Outlet’s list reads “6 stalks = prosperity” | A new job, a financial milestone, a new venture |
| 7 | Good health or wellness (7 of 8) | Garden Guides: luck in relationships and finances. Bonsai Outlet’s list reads “7 stalks = good health” | Recovery from illness, sympathy |
| 8 | Wealth or prosperity (5 of 8) | Growth or fertility in Symbol Sage, Garden Guides and Nurserylive; Bonsai Outlet says “growth or wealth” | Business openings, promotions |
| 9 | Great fortune or good luck (7 of 8) | Garden Guides: health, love life, prosperity; Verdant Lyfe and FNP add longevity | Retirements, decade anniversaries, life milestones |
The takeaway is that the guides agree on love for two stalks and flag four as unlucky, mostly agree on money for six, health for seven and great fortune for nine, and split on five and eight.
Most guides also read one stalk as simplicity, commitment or a fresh start and ten as completeness. The guides that list twenty-one stalks mostly read it as a broad blessing (Bonsai Outlet, Verdant Lyfe, Tumbleweed and Nurserylive), while Symbol Sage gives it as enduring health for the family. Garden Guides adds that an odd number of stalks is yang (masculine) and an even number yin (feminine), and that most odd numbers are given a higher value than even ones.
Where do the guides disagree about lucky bamboo stalks?
Five is the clearest split. Four guides read five stalks as balance, harmony or good fortune across life. Three of them, Verdant Lyfe, FNP and Symbol Sage, tie it to the five feng shui elements (earth, fire, water, wood and metal) or to five areas of life, and Tumbleweed gives balance and harmony across all areas of life. Three guides call it a wealth number and a fourth, Nurserylive, ties the five areas of life to wealth. Garden Guides says five stalks clumped together signify wealth, with each stalk a different channel for wealth, and adds balance as a second reading.
Eight is the other split, and it is the number with the best-known pun behind it (see below). Five guides read eight stalks as wealth or prosperity and four as growth or fertility, with Bonsai Outlet giving both. Lively Root is the outlier on six: it reads six stalks as good health and harmony, while the other seven give money.
Even the three blessings of the three-stalk plant are not fixed. Verdant Lyfe pairs the words fu, lu and soh with happiness, long life and wealth, in that order. Nurserylive prints the same three words as Fu (happiness), Lu (wealth) and Soh (long life). Neither names a source for the words.
Why is four unlucky and eight lucky?
The usual explanation is a pun. Verdant Lyfe writes the pair as sì (four) and sǐ (death), and the Binghamton University release on Zili Yang’s pricing study gives the same pairing, adding that six sounds like “smooth” and eight like “prosperity.” Both give the sound-alike as the reason people avoid or prefer a number.
The eight pun is looser than popular accounts suggest. Victor Mair, who has taught Chinese language and culture for four decades, wrote on Language Log that the usual explanation is that bā (eight) sounds like fā (to prosper), but that the homophony is “not very close.” He found that the Cantonese pair, baat and faat, is no closer than the Mandarin one.
The habit is measurable in prices. Yang analysed more than 11,000 Beijing-area prices in five categories and found the digit 4 under-represented, and the digit 8 over-represented, in the last place of the price. The release quotes Yang’s estimate that retailers could have gained as much as an extra 4.16 percent by exploiting these preferences, which he says could translate into as much as 1.40 percent of annual GDP in 2007.
Is four stalks of lucky bamboo really bad luck?
No test has shown that a four-stalk plant harms anyone, but the fear of the number 4 has been studied. In 2001 a University of California, San Diego team reported in the BMJ that Chinese and Japanese Americans died of chronic heart disease more often than expected on the fourth day of the month.
1.13 times the expected number of chronic heart disease deaths fell on the fourth of the month among Chinese and Japanese Americans across the United States, 1973 to 1998 (95% confidence interval 1.06 to 1.21).
Source: Phillips et al., The Hound of the Baskervilles effect, BMJ 2001
The study used the death certificates of 209,908 Chinese and Japanese Americans. For chronic heart disease in California the ratio was 1.27, and white controls matched on age, sex and cause of death showed no similar peak in cardiac deaths.
The result is disputed. Gary Smith of Pomona College re-ran the analysis in a 2002 BMJ letter, using California death records that included the 1989 to 1998 data Phillips used, plus 1969 to 1988 and 1999 to 2001. He found no statistically persuasive peak on day 4, and noted that Phillips had counted only some heart-disease categories. So the custom of avoiding four is documented in prices, and a health effect of the fourth day is contested.
Two of the eight guides give four stalks a positive reading or a hedge. Bonsai Outlet lists “stable, strong or power” and notes that four is sometimes considered unlucky, and Lively Root says only that some believe four stalks mean bad luck. Verdant Lyfe adds that many buildings in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and other parts of Asia skip the fourth floor.
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→ View My Garden CalendarIs lucky bamboo in the Victorian flower dictionaries?
No. I searched the full text of five Victorian flower dictionaries for “bamboo” and “dracaena” and found no entry in any of them: Greenaway’s Language of Flowers (1884), Tyas (1869), Flora’s Pocket Dictionary (1870), Worthington (1884) and Dumont (1851). Greenaway lists “Reed” as “Complaisance. Music.” and “Reed, Split” as “Indiscretion,” but a reed is a different plant.
The species is newer than all five books. The Sander nursery first exhibited Dracaena sanderiana at Earl’s Court in 1892, according to the 2018 revision of African Dracaena in Blumea, and the species was published the same year. Its name therefore post-dates every one of those books. Our floriography guide covers what the Victorian books do say about other plants.
Which plant is lucky bamboo?
Lucky bamboo is Dracaena sanderiana, a tropical perennial shrub in the asparagus family (Asparagaceae). NC State Extension writes that it “is not a bamboo at all” and that the species name commemorates Henry Frederick Conrad Sander, a German-born nurseryman and orchid specialist of St Albans, England. Bamboos are grasses with hollow woody stems, Larry Hodgson writes in the Laidback Gardener, and are not related to dracaenas.
The Blumea revision lists the wild range as Cameroon, Gabon, the Central African Republic, the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Angola. NC State gives “West Central Tropical Africa to North East Angola.”
The name on a pot can still vary. NC State lists Dracaena braunii as a former name, and the Blumea revision notes that a 2017 checklist treats D. sanderiana as a synonym of D. braunii. The authors found no reference for that treatment and keep the two apart, because the flowers of D. sanderiana are five times longer. They add that D. sanderiana is also sold under the name D. braunii and as “Lucky Bamboo.”
Real bamboo has its own symbolism. A Smithsonian Freer|Sackler label for a 1369 bamboo handscroll says that in Chinese tradition the resilient, evergreen bamboo symbolizes the gentleman who sustains his moral integrity despite adverse conditions. That meaning is about character, and the lucky bamboo meanings above are about love, health and money.
Hodgson tells the commercial story this way: bamboo has long been associated with good fortune in China, few true bamboos grow indoors, and growers began selling dracaena as a substitute. He writes that millions of stems are now produced yearly on farms in tropical Asia. I found no dated trade record for his account, so treat it as one writer’s history.
The plant is not harmless to pets. NC State tags it as poisonous if ingested and as a problem for dogs, cats and children, and describes it as having low severity poison characteristics.
What do braided, spiral and tiered lucky bamboo mean?
Shape meanings are thinner than stalk meanings, because each rests on one or two websites. Symbol Sage says a tower symbolizes a brighter future, a braid brings good news in life and career, and a woven trellis wards off negativity. Tumbleweed Plants says a spiral or curled stalk is associated with creativity and an innovative mindset, a tiered tower symbolizes progress step by step, and a heart shape represents love and harmony.
Each shape is made by a different trick. In Hodgson’s account a braid comes from moving a horizontal stem back and forth to create zigzag growth, and the zigzag part is then cut off, rooted and arranged with other stems. A tower is built from stems of different heights tied together, and a heart from two hooks set face to face. Growers also tie stems with red or gold ribbons, colours he says the Chinese consider auspicious, and he reports that the ribbons increased sales.
The takeaway is that each shape meaning rests on one or two websites, while the spiral method is described in three places: two Hodgson posts and the Acta Horticulturae study.
How is a lucky bamboo spiral made?
A lucky bamboo spiral is made by turning a stem that is growing toward the light. The cane is naturally straight, and the Acta Horticulturae study on spiral production says it can be encouraged to form a spiral by manipulating the plant’s position relative to its light source.
The mechanism is phototropism. Hodgson explains that dracaenas always grow up toward the light, so a stem laid flat sends its tip upward at nearly 90 degrees from the old stem. After a few weeks growers turn the stem a little clockwise, the tip reorients, and repeated turns bend the stem. One full turn describes a loop, and two or three turns make a spiral.
The Acta Horticulturae team tested whether plant hormones could speed this up. They rotated potted plants by 45 degrees twice a week in front of the light, in six treatments with three replicates each: five doses of auxin from 50 to 250 ppm, each with 100 ppm gibberellic acid, plus gibberellic acid alone. The longest and smoothest spirals came from 50 ppm auxin with 100 ppm gibberellic acid, and plants grown from 35 cm cuttings grew spirals faster than plants from 25 cm cuttings.
At home the same idea is slower. In a second post Hodgson describes the open-sided box method: a potted plant sits in a cardboard box open on one side, and each time it leans toward the light you rotate it slightly in the same direction. He has not tried it and says a decent double spiral takes years under home conditions.
From lucky bamboo meaning to lucky bamboo care
A stalk-count arrangement only carries its message while the plant is alive. Hodgson writes that plants sold as lucky bamboo are almost never long-lived, lasting 6 to 9 months and rarely much longer, for reasons that include being stripped of leaves and shipped with dry roots. Our lucky bamboo care guide covers the tap-water fluoride problem behind brown tips, light and water changes. Our guide to feng shui houseplants covers where the tradition places lucky bamboo; it lists the east or southeast of a room.
Lucky bamboo meaning FAQ
What does lucky bamboo symbolize?
Lucky bamboo symbolizes good luck, and by tradition each stalk count carries a specific wish, such as love for two stalks and happiness, long life and wealth for three. No Victorian flower dictionary I searched has an entry for it.
What does the number of stalks mean on a lucky bamboo?
In eight English-language guides, two stalks mean love, four are unlucky, six mean money, seven mean health and nine mean great fortune. The guides split on five stalks (balance or wealth) and on eight (wealth or growth).
Why is four stalks of lucky bamboo unlucky?
Because the Chinese word for four, sì, sounds like the word for death, sǐ. All eight guides mention four stalks as unlucky, two of them only as a hedge, and seven give the death link.
How many stalks of lucky bamboo are the luckiest?
There is no single answer. Eight is the wealth number in five of eight guides, nine is great fortune in seven of eight, and three is happiness, long life and wealth in six of eight.
Is lucky bamboo real bamboo?
No. Lucky bamboo is Dracaena sanderiana, a shrub in the asparagus family from tropical Africa, while bamboos are grasses.
How do they make lucky bamboo spiral?
Growers lay the stem flat and turn it a little every few weeks so the tip keeps growing toward the light. A study in Acta Horticulturae rotated plants by 45 degrees twice a week.
What does the red ribbon on lucky bamboo mean?
Red and gold are colours that Hodgson says the Chinese consider auspicious. Growers tie stems with red or gold ribbons, and he reports that the ribbons increased sales.
Sources
- NC State Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox. Lucky Bamboo, Dracaena sanderiana
- Damen, T.H.J., van der Burg, W.J., Wiland-Szymańska, J. and Sosef, M.S.M. Taxonomic novelties in African Dracaena (Dracaenaceae). Blumea 63(1), 2018. Naturalis repository
- Sewwandi, H.P.T.L., Gunasekera, H.K.L.K. and Krishnarajah, S.A. Production of spirals from Dracaena sanderiana canes as value added products. Acta Horticulturae 1278, 95–102 (2020). International Society for Horticultural Science
- Smithsonian, Freer|Sackler. Bamboo handscroll, Ming dynasty, 1369 (F1938.18), object label
- Phillips, D.P., Liu, G.C., Kwok, K., Jarvinen, J.R., Zhang, W. and Abramson, I.S. The Hound of the Baskervilles effect: natural experiment on the influence of psychological stress on timing of death. BMJ 323, 1443–1446 (2001)
- Smith, G. Scared to death? BMJ 325, 1442–1443 (2002)
- Mair, V. 8/8/8. Language Log, 8 August 2008
- Coker, R. ‘Lucky’ numbers make for unlucky customers (on Z. Yang’s study in The Journal of Socio-Economics). Binghamton University via PhysOrg, 19 March 2012
- Hodgson, L. What Is a Lucky Bamboo? Laidback Gardener, 18 February 2018
- Hodgson, L. How to Create Your Own Spiral Lucky Bamboo. Laidback Gardener, 15 January 2021
- Lively Root. Lucky Bamboo Meaning: Number of Stalks & Their Symbolic Meaning
- Bonsai Outlet. What Does Lucky Bamboo Mean?
- Verdant Lyfe. What the Number of Stalks on Your Lucky Bamboo Actually Means (And Which to Gift for Every Occasion)
- FNP. Lucky Bamboo: Know The Meaning Behind Its Number of Stalks
- Symbol Sage. Lucky Bamboo – Why Is It a Lucky Symbol?
- Dunn, E. Lucky Bamboo Stalks Meaning. Garden Guides (updated 3 November 2022)
- Tumbleweed Plants. Lucky Bamboo Meaning: What Each Number of Stalks Really Symbolises
- Nurserylive. Never gift a 4 layer lucky bamboo? (22 June 2016)
- Greenaway, K. Language of Flowers. George Routledge and Sons, 1884 (Project Gutenberg ebook 31591)
- Tyas, R. The Language of Flowers: or, Floral Emblems of Thoughts, Feelings, and Sentiments. George Routledge and Sons, 1869. Internet Archive
- Flora’s Pocket Dictionary: A Lexicon of the Language and Sentiment of Flowers. Porter and Coates, Philadelphia, 1870. Internet Archive
- The Language of Flowers, Including Floral Poetry. R. Worthington, New York, 1884. Internet Archive
- Dumont, H. The Language of Flowers: The Floral Offering. H. C. Peck and Theo. Bliss, Philadelphia, 1851 (Project Gutenberg ebook 71779)
