Dealing with invasive Bamboo

[suein56]

I am still digging out the wayward 'roots' of the 'contained' bamboo plant my OH removed and destroyed from our garden a while ago. Planted by the previous owners.
Unfortunately the roots appear to have made extensive, explorative travels underneath our lawn, possibly over a number of years, so I am attempting to search out and remove the interlopers .. seemingly digging up a large part of our lawn in the process.
OH not very happy but he understands the necessity.

[Doug]

We learnt many years ago never plant bamboo unless youve got acres to put it in as it takes over.

[Blaze]

[mention]suein56[/mention]
I've become quite an expert in dealing with bamboo ! The previous owners of our house planted the really invasive quick growing variety, now banned for sale in France I believe.
We had a load dug out by a paysagiste 5 years ago where it had invaded the grass. He suggested leaving a line along a wall and put in a membrane to stop the roots spreading horizontally. Any residue of root left behind by the digger would reshoot and eventually reappear. After a few months, no more wayward shoots appeared. BUT .... after 5 years, the existing line of bamboo looked very sad - the roots were strangling each other as they had nowhere to go so the plants couldn't thrive. This time we got a friend to dig the remaining plants and massive root system up with a mini pelle and I am currently dealing with the remaining shoots that reappear from time to time.

One very effective way of dealing with wayward shoots is letting the shoot reach a 'reasonable' size, then cutting it and immediately painting the stem with neat glyphosate (I kept a small quantity for this very purpose). It's 100% effective - I learnt about it from a New Zealand site where they sell a product specially designed to get rid of bamboo. They explained how to do it and when I looked at the magic ingredient of the product, found it was nothing other than glyphosate. I tested it on several stems before the last lot were dug up and it worked perfectly.
If you dig down to the root and it's a long one, you can do the same thing - cut the root and paint it with neat glyphosate. It saves digging up the rest of the root and it will kill the whole of the wayward root. Once the roots are out of the ground, they dry up and die. They are very hard and you can get a very nasty cut, so handle with care !

I'm well aware that glyphosate has been banned for purchase by individuals, but it would seem that there is no other effective way of killing bamboo. Fortunately I had some before it was banned and I only use it for this purpose.

[RobertArthur]

@ Suein56, what did I yesterday, or to be more precise in 2003 and 2004? Mowing and cutting back? Forget it. Early in the springtime of 2003 I asked a friend of mine, please, chop these little bamboo things off, in the grass alongside our kitchen door. Little did I know. Four weeks later we returned, went to the far side of the house, everything normal and then it happened. We turned left: from right to left, reaching into the back garden, only bamboo, several already wih a height of two meters, a jungle in the Nièvre.

Not having a digger I used a pick, an axe and a very sharp chisel. Back breaking indeed. Took me several weeks of hard labour in an uphill battle to gain terrain. Leaving a Verdun like landsape behind me. That was only step one. I decided to build my own ligne de Maginot: concrete and several iron bars, about 50 to 60 centimers deep. Topped up with authentic looking stones:




My French neighbours asked me politely if I knew what happend to the French defense lines in the beginning of the First World-War. They were right. Prisoners always want to escape, even from Alcatraz. In our pond is a little overflow, a surpleine, and as I should have known prisoners seem to be fond of tunnels. There was a massive amount of bamboo roots going to a regard six metres away. And inside it was rather full, hard as concrete. I had to use a jeep to pull out the remaining last metres, under the bamboo.

Everything under control? No, several years later the bamboo roots had managed to push the stones around our pond into the water. My brother in law, he likes fishing, tigh high rubber boots, got them out. So concrete construction time again, behind the authentic looking stones is a second defense line.

Everything under control now? No, there were roots left going to a grand pré next to our garden. The cows appreciate the young bamboo and cutting back the remaining bamboo stalks twice a year helps also.

[suein56]

[mention]Blaze[/mention] [mention]RobertArthur[/mention]

Thanks for the descriptions of your offensives against your bamboo invasions .. it is a delightful plant but it's also a real pain to remove .. I shall continue my efforts knowing that I am definitely not alone

[Blaze]

[mention]suein56[/mention]
Trying to do it by hand is back-breaking, long and doesn't guarantee success, witness RA's description. A mini pelle will do the job in a couple of hours rather than days or weeks, and it will get rid of them. Our friend with the mini-pelle is inundated with jobs to remove bamboo. Inevitably a few bits of root will be left behind, but you'll soon spot them when they come back to life. If you can't dig them up, then Mr Monsanto will sort them out as per my previous posting. And they will not return.

If you limit the root growth of the rapid growing variety, you will end up with spindly plants like we did after 5 years because the roots will stop the plants developing properly - they will literally strangle each other. We made the mistake of leaving a line of bamboo along a wall as suggested by the paysagiste .... so we have removed the lot.

There are plenty of slow growing, non invasive varieties to be found. They are attractive plants but you need to choose carefully.

[mysty]

@suein56
Trying to do it by hand is back-breaking, long and doesn't guarantee success, witness RA's description. A mini pelle will do the job in a couple of hours rather than days or weeks, and it will get rid of them. Our friend with the mini-pelle is inundated with jobs to remove bamboo. Inevitably a few bits of root will be left behind, but you'll soon spot them when they come back to life. If you can't dig them up, then Mr Monsanto will sort them out as per my previous posting. And they will not return.

If you limit the root growth of the rapid growing variety, you will end up with spindly plants like we did after 5 years because the roots will stop the plants developing properly - they will literally strangle each other. We made the mistake of leaving a line of bamboo along a wall as suggested by the paysagiste .... so we have removed the lot.

There are plenty of slow growing, non invasive varieties to be found. They are attractive plants but you need to choose carefully.

As said above a mini digger sorts it out very quickly but could make a mess of the lawn.
Probably a good work out doing it by hand everything will hurt though.

[DaveW]

@suein56
I'm well aware that glyphosate has been banned for purchase by individuals, but it would seem that there is no other effective way of killing bamboo. Fortunately I had some before it was banned and I only use it for this purpose.

My daughter bought a house close to where we are and the first thing I spotted was bamboo. Her gardener is quite ruthless, he can use glyphosate and applied it as you describe. No more Bamboo

[Blaze]

[mention]DaveW[/mention] Brilliant. That's the first time I've heard of anyone else using that method, and it really works.
You've got to be ruthless with it - it grows so quickly that anything other than a digger and glyphosate is back-breaking, time consuming and not very efficient. It just depends how much you want to get rid of it and how quickly !

[RobertArthur]

@ Blaze, back-breaking indeed and @ Mysty, a nice work-out also. I preferred non-efficiency during our first years here in la France profonde, no internet connection at all (surprise?), no fax, only a ligne téléphonique fixe. Splendid isolation, don't call me, I'll call you.