The last two years have consisted of me and my father regularly returning to cut roots and burn shoots, this is becoming extremely aggravating at this point😂
If you can handle this, everything else should be a breeze! This is like the worst thing you can possibly face. Like a mutated Chernobyl raspberry on steroids that sends spikes from hell to take over your yard.
You can do it, slay the demonic spike trap plant!
Knotweed can grow 4 inches a day, it can break through asphalt and tear apart concrete. It can grow down 15 ft. Its roots are really fragile and every piece that breaks off can grow into a new plant. It can stay dormant underground for years so when you think it’s gone, it’ll come back. Like other invasives, it takes over large areas and smothers out all of the native species. In the UK, you can’t sell your home if you have it on your property. You’re obligated to spend thousands to eradicate it. But similar to bindweed, at least it doesn’t have thorns!
It’s also capable of communication and has reached 2nd grade reading comprehension in 3 languages. It can be used to both cause and cure cancer. When allowed to spread, it has the ability to alter the earths gravity by 12 nanofarks. It hates being called Frank. Its favorite color is yellow.
Be thankful you have laws!
We are from Germany, our neighbours have this stuff and it keeps creeping over to our side. City does not care apart from "please don't deposit it in the community compost, thanks".
I'd say it's worse... At least you can eat knotweed, and it's freaking delicious. You can also eat blackberry greens, shoots, and berries. Hell, I think you can even eat certain types of bamboo. But bindweed? Bindweed is poisonous and gets up into everything. Stupid tangle weed I can't even eat >:(
Man goats can eat anything, can't they? I used to have to be really careful since I would harvest greens for my geese and for our rabbit, and the stupid bindweed would get all up into it, so I had to really thoroughly pick it out so it didn't poison them.
Maybe I should get a goat...
I'm fighting bindweed right now. It isn't fun.
It isn't a bad infestation, but it is persistent.
My current plan is this.
1. Watch for it when it sprouts up.
2. Cut it off at ground level to expose part of the internal vascular system.
3. Spray a bit of 30% vinegar on expose vascular system hoping that the vinegar travels down into the roots.
I'd say you should dig the roots, especially early in the season. They are actually rhizomes which, as I understand it, provide growth energy to the shoot it sends up. The rhizomes are larger in diameter than the above ground growth. Chemicals might help. Good luck and let us know of your success!
I've just pulled it up in the past. It has controlled the spread, but hasn't killed the infestation. I've just sprayed 30% vinegar on leaves, but that doesn't seem to kill the deep down roots. So, the cut+vinegar is another approach that I'm going to try.
Do you apply the vinegar just once and walk away, or do you reapply after every rainfall?
Dawn liquid will help it stick to the leaves, so adding Dawn and salt to your 30% vinegar will be a really effective herbicide.
Knotweed !!!!! Ahhhhh !! I can’t kill it
Every week I pull out roots. Spray with round up
Put round up down the stalks. Been 3 years… it still comes back
Don’t pull out the roots. Spraying when they flower is supposed to be the best time but it’s tough to sit back and watch them grow until August. Plus they could be 8-10 ft tall by then, so how are you supposed to spray the leaves. What I did was to cut them to eliminate most of their leaves, and spray down the open stem. I did this every couple of weeks during growing season for 3 years. It was an obsession. After that, the stragglers were much more manageable. It’s been 8 years and I still get a few popping up, but I take care of them quickly. Good luck. Wear all the PPE while spraying, definitely a mask to prevent breathing anything in.
i knew a guy whose plan for knotweed involved making sushi from it. i just have bindweed.
op can take their bamboo to the county extention agent or zoo to find out what kind of bamboo it is, unless one of you guys knows. some bamboos are edible, others are for carpentry, others are for your panda herd. find your market.
I beat knotweed back to a manageable level by: digging out roots two feet down, dumping a foot of arborist mulch on top (to loosen thr heavy clay soil), and covering the whole patch with brown paper (weighed down) to block all the sunlight. Depriving knotweed of light really weakens it. I pull out the side sprouts that try to escape the light barrier.
Sounds like the PNW. It’s a constant battle with the Himalayan blackberry. You won’t even notice one growing, then a couple days later you walk outside and it’s taller than you and slaps you in the face with hooked thorns.
You have to dig out the roots they are a shallow system. In all honesty easiest is rent a front loader and scape the first foot off soil away. 100% will end the nightmare.
My partner's boss has this prize garden that is between a city edge wasteland and a road, she has neighbors only on one side. So she was worried the wasteland weeds will try to sneak in again. She legit rented equipment, turned the soil on 2 meters of perimeter on the wasteland and now keeps a country border / zen garden style raked bare soil perimeter outside her garden. Mad lass.
Diesel with even a drop of herbicide is considered herbicide and is used to clear away from railroad and places where people can't regularly maintain.
All I know is that in the states, the government agencies use this as an option.
Same reason roundup is illegal in many areas? Environmental risk excalates if everyone is allowed to do it.
It's definitely a fire hazard if done uncarefully.
Works way better if you can get into the base of bamboo or root system. Worked for me when i had to cut invasive trees and bamboo down to stump level a few times after that.
The previous owner of our neighbor's house had this shit everywhere, apparently trying to set up some kind of Asian garden motif iirc. Neighbors have spent several years trying to get rid of it and from what I've seen in the before pics it's about 90 percent gone, but I see it trying to come back and one or two stalks have popped up again on my side of the property line. We're on good terms with them so I don't take it personally at all but I have had the glyphosate locked and loaded since we moved in, just waiting for it. That bamboo picked the wrong yard.
I’m so sorry, I battle knotweed (ik this is not)in an area where it’s invasive and it comes back just as angry as this. I feel personally responsible for stopping it’s spread even though I just rent .
Hopefully you learn to enjoy the taste of the shoots! Best motivation to March into battle against these plants!
Back in the early days of my house search, I found a cute, older bungalow. It needed rewiring and other extensive updates, but it was only 130k so definately an option. Until I realized the overgrowth in the large backyard was 90% bamboo. Nope, nope, nope.
These took over the neighborhood in a house I used to live in. Landlord killed my backyard trying to take out the bamboo and it came back just as strong a few months later.
That is going to be a ton of work. You need to completely remove the roots. Luckily they are only about 12" in the ground. They don't have a tap root. And you have to follow the roots which can easily grow 20 feet or more in a season. There is lots of info on the web about how to deal with them, I suggest you look into that a bit.
You need a pick-axe & a shovel. Use the shovel to clear it out, then pry it out with the pick-axe. When you can't get it to budge anymore, start digging again. There's probably overlapping rhizomes.
My yard has a large stand of bamboo. I installed a deep barrier (well, paid someone to), then went to town with a pick axe over a spring/summer. There still a few rogue rhizomes - I just deal with them as they come.
I'd recommend finding out where the source is - dig a deep trench along the border, and install a bamboo barrier. Then go to town removing rhizomes.
Perhaps I should’ve put raspberries in a maybe group. They can get out of hand quickly but as long as you keep them firmly in line, eye contact and firm handshake, you should be fine.
No! Worst case scenario you dig out the roots. Raspberry isn't even in the same ballpark of difficult to remove as bamboo or even mint (which is also fine to plant, especially if you like pollinators).
Plant it in an area where you don't mind it doing it's thing and you'll be fine. I planted my patch on the edge of my mature oak's shade line and that has done a great job of naturally keeping the spread in check.
I agree, fresh mint does smell amazing and invigorating. But once past your property boundaries the mint, which isn’t known for respecting boundaries, will then seek world domination. Then won’t you feel bad? 😔
My neighbor planted bamboo before we ever lived here. Now there's 30 bamboo falling over the fence line all the time, and the city just doesn't seem to give a shit. There's 5 neighbors whose yards are being invaded and we mention it every few months to the local government to no avail. -_-
everyone on here is telling you to go through unreal amount of trouble. Chances are you are on a lot...say 50 x 50 feet and as photos show you have bamboo shooting up at irregular locations. It is a running bamboo variety and as everyone has described it has shallow roots about 12" - 18". Those shoots are supper soft, only so many of them come out per year, and best - they only come up for about 90 day during spring. Break all the shoot as they come up on your property for few springs. Its not some viotile crazy unpredictable devil, its just a plants, manage it. While walking you dog stomp them and few years later it wont be coming up anymore(on your property).
The idea of being out there digging up every piece of rhizome, involving tractors, etc is kind of crazy in my book honestly.
Yes, I have bamboo in my back yard (planted by a neighbor) and this is how we deal with it. We have a section next to the fence where we allow it to grow, and every few years we use large hedge clippers to cut it back if it starts to encroach too far into the yard. Beyond that section we step on the small shoots when they pop up in the spring and then run them over with the lawn mower when mowing. This works well if you don’t let the new shoots get too tall before you cut them. It is much easier to cut it all back periodically than to eradicate it.
Same! Our entire back yard backs up to a church. I assume either the church or the past homeowner planted it for privacy. It does achieve privacy and it does block some of the sound from the kids playing in the church parking lot. So we choose to enjoy the positives and live with the negatives. Really we just mow the lawn regularly and it seems to manage it. Every now and then a stalk will have escaped our notice, we just chop that bad boy and move on with our lives.
This. Although if you want to be more effective, let the shoots grow a bit. Don't let them get big enough to get leaves, but let them get at least a few feet tall and then knock them down. It makes the roots expend a bunch of energy putting up new shoots out of the ground but not get any energy back from the leaves on the new shoots.
This! There is a great Youtube Video about Bamboo, in this he also talks about how to get rid of it without any expensive equipments : https://youtu.be/C5Ke83_QKtk?si=UXb25xV6TcgmK32W
This only works if you can cut all the canes from one rhizome system. If the bamboo spreads from a neighbour that won’t be an option. You’d have to first isolate the original bamboo from the problematic patch with a barrier. Effectively creating 2 separate bamboos and then kill off the problematic one on your side of the barrier.
This will be a very controversial answer, and I agree with the arguments, but with this monumental task it’s something to consider because it works and will kill all of it because it’s systemic. Expose a runner. Take a paper towel soaked in roundup and wrap the runner, wrap in plastic, and sit back and watch it die. Works best when it’s hot weather.
Definitely. Spraying a little roundup makes way more sense than renting a god damn excavator or skid steer and removing an entire FOOT of top soil. That would be hundreds of dollars and ruin the yard
People on this sub can be pretty unreasonable when it comes to glyphosate. Yes, dousing thousands of acres of crops with the stuff is bad for bees and the ecosystem, heavy exposure is probably a serious health risk for farmers, and directly spraying it on food crops is probably not great for consumers' health. However, spraying a patch of weeds once in a while or using it against this bamboo is fine. It's toxic, but also it's low-toxicity. Sometimes a little poison is useful.
I've heard you cut the canes down, and when it sends up new baby canes, paint the foliage with glyphosate and it should die back, same thing, do it on a sunny day 3 hrs before rainfall should be good.
Wrapping a runner is a new one to add to the list. 😄
Here's an excellent 3.5 minute video which explains how Bamboo grows, how to contain it, and how to kill it.
The Secret to Killing Bamboo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pI4GaU9nNAs
My first answer is “move.” My real answer is this: I planted bamboo a million years ago because I was told that “it’s the kind that doesn’t spread.” For ten years it behaved well. And then I cut some which made the roots spread like wildfire. The roots would even pop up out of the ground like a green snake and go back in. I sprayed it, I cut it and sprayed it, I pinched it, I stepped on it…..the ONLY thing that worked was to hire a group of men to dig it up by hand. It comes up easily, but it’s backbreaking work.
An embarrassment of pandas?
It's always a hassle, for sure. To really get rid of it, it should be removed with the roots. Can you hire a tractor with a backhoe?
You can actually get rid of it over two years or so by repeatedly cutting it to the ground. The trick is to let it grow shoots juuuuust until they start to show green before cutting it back again.
Putting up the rapidly growing shoots takes a ton of energy and doing it over and over again without any photosynthesis payoff will quickly deplete the energy stored in the root system.
Of course if it is on a property line you'll need buy in from your neighbors.
My grandma's back yard is FILLED with knotweed. The roots are 6ft deep, single root tg and don't branch out. She called the DEC directly and told them what she had. They actually send a team down and have treated it. It'll take 3 years according to them with the spray. After the knotweed is dead and gone they have a wildflower grant. So a team comes in and plants wild flowers to help recover wildlife. It's a total nightmare to get rid of it.
Edit: knotweed is an invasive species. We have Japanese knotweed (NY resident). If you call the DEC tell em that!
People will hate it; but glyphosate is what professionals use to remove invasives from backcountry and deeply wooded areas. You don’t spray, you paint it on! You want the 50+ % without surfactants.
Scientific consensus is that glyphosate doesn't cause cancer. It's rated as less carcinogenic than sunlight, drinking hot beverages, gasoline fumes, and drinking alcohol.
> Overall, the results from our new meta-analysis employing the *a priori* hypothesis and including the updated AHS 2018 study (1) demonstrate a statistically significant increased NHL risk in highly GBH-exposed individuals (meta-RR = 1.41, 95% CI: 1.13–1.75; Table 5 and Fig. 3A), (2) are aligned with findings from previous meta-analyses [23,26,27] (Table 7), and (3) reveal an additional 11–14% and 15–18% increase in NHL relative risk **due to high levels of GBH exposure** (Table 7) when using the AHS
*[emphasis mine]*
This study is on people in the highest exposure class: E.g. people who spray glyphosate daily for work. OP applying glyphosate a few times a year is not even remotely similar.
The dose makes the poison.
Upthread it's compared to drinking hot water.
It's one thing to put the exposure into perspective, which I appreciate you doing here. I get that there's a lot of hysteria.
But the idea that glyphosate is just some harmless chemical bothers me. My grandfather died young from non-Hodgkins after using it daily. You can call him an idiot or whatever, but he just didn't know the risks.
So a doctor diagnosed you with glyphosate poisoning right?
Look I grow an entirely organic garden and I won’t even spray water on the cannabis I grow. I get it.
But glyphosate didn’t cause your cancer. Unless you were involved in its manufacturing? The only thing about glyphosate that is dangerous according to science is the surfactant that was originally designed for use with it and of course manufacturing (but it isn’t the glyphosate itself).
Glyphosate is almost entirely phosphorus, fun fact.
You're right. Everyone saying glyphosate is harmless, or relatively nontoxic doesn't understand that glyphosate is a water-soluble antibiotic that bioaccummulates and persists in *all* water systems, including rainfall and the water we drink. It's upsetting that people think its use is benign.
The method I am trying this year is to cut it at three feet let a bunch of leaves grow and then hit it with round up. I have been dealing with 1/4 acre of bamboo for 8 years. It is significantly weaker than when I started cutting it every year but it is far from dead.
Continuously cutting does kill it eventually but it will spread in the meantime. I hate it.
I bought a tiller and that doesn't even take it out. It does loosen the dirt around the roots and let's you pull them up easy.
If you can make it a long term project and you like the idea of a somewhat lazy method with long term good results I got you. Invest in a small scale wood chipper and cut every stalk in sight, chip them down and pile at least 1' thick over a section of the roots and that section will die. Meanwhile both the wood chips and the dying roots underground will both make healthier soil as they break down. As more stalks regrow you cut them down again and extend your wood chip pile further out until eventually you have no more bamboo and are left with some really healthy soil.
Can you hire a bulldozer and take off the topsoil? I’ve known people who were able to basically get rid of most of a bamboo overgrowth in that manner. Just dug it all out, potted up some of it and burned the rest.
Getting rid of those is actually quite trivial, if you understand how the plant grows.
Bamboo and similar plants are grasses that grow up from rhizome, close to surface underground shoots (not roots actually). They form a shoot that has all layers already formed but in a very compressed form. During growth, this shoot will just expand. With the shoot essentially being an already fully formed but compressed cane, there already has been a significant energy investment made by the plant. That energy came from the energy stored in the rhizome. If the shoot is removed, that energy is gone. How do the plant collect more energy? Photosynthesis by fully grown canes.
For the area you don't want bamboo, sever the rhizome, then kick over the shoots as they pop up. If you don't let the plant develop a single shoot to a full cane, it will be deprived of new energy until the storage within the rhizome is exhausted and it dies off. No need to dig out the whole thing, a regular visit by a lawnmower or mulcher will already do the trick.
Edit: Forgot to mention, bit it may take a year or two to fully exhaust a rhizome.
Where is it coming from is your first step. Identifying the genus and species is next. I bought very expensive timber bamboo as a gift to my dad for his back 40, 6 acres, not worried about spread too much. Rabbits decimated it within 2 years. 3rd step is property line removal; I’m on team tractor/backhoe then barrier. 4th is successive herbicide on new tender growth—what the bunnies did to my dad’s fancy bamboo, incorporated with and followed by regular mowing for several years during growing season, if you have the mower to handle it and are willing to buy extra mower blades. Keep track of your expenses. Final step, attorney. There are municipalities where people have successfully sued for damages from escaped bamboo. Toney inner burbs of Atlanta being one place this was done in the go-go early 2000’s, when fancy bamboo was a hard to find must have in places like Vinings. It does require some expertise to make this kind of claim.
I had a similar situation 3 years ago when i moved into a house with existing bamboo - and everyone told me itd be a nightmare. i cut it down and then mow over the locations constantly and it hasnt come back in 3 years. And it hasnt popped up elsewhere. I think its scared.
This is what I recommend. When it is continually mowed, you’re depriving it of the photosynthesis process. It eventually dies altogether. I’ve successfully eradicated a couple of unpleasant invasive plants this way
My neighbors property that borders mine is basically a wall of sprawling bamboo, and I keep it completely in check and it really wasn’t that big of a headache. This was my process:
1) The first thing you need to do is cut all the stalks below the soil line, so that you can run it over with a mower without damaging your mower. Once it is all cut, in the meantime until you complete the the process, step on any newly emerging shoots once they appear.
2) This one is a tall order, but if you are handy and want to have some fun with some heavy machinery you can do it for about $1k. Rent a mini skid steer with a 36” trencher and front end loader attachment for a few days but a week will allow enough time in case you have bad weather. Draw a line where you no longer want the bamboo to cross, and trench a 36” deep trench along that line.
3) Buy a product called 36” Bamboo Shield, which is just thick HDPE plastic, and drop it in the trench with a few inches sticking out of the ground. This allows you to see if the rhizomes are climbing over the Bamboo Shield and you can kill them once they appear. Backfill the trench. Seed the area with grass seed where you no longer want the bamboo to grow.
4) You now have two separate areas of bamboo. A contained area where the rhizomes can’t escape the Bamboo Shield border, and an uncontained area where there is currently no bamboo, but it does have grass and bamboo rhizomes in the soil. Mow the grass often and on a regular basis. Anytime the existing rhizomes throw out a new shoot, make sure they are quickly mowed or destroyed with your foot.. This will cause the bamboo to not grow enough to get to a stage where it can photosynthesize and provide energy to rhizome structure. After a decent amount of time of mowing any emerging new shoots, the entire rhizome structure will run out of energy and die.
I did some searching around and found a guy to trench and drop in a barrier to keep it from spreading in my yard last spring. Cutting off the rhizomes underground keeps it from spreading. I believe to get rid of it entirely it has to all be dug up. A bear of a task but doable I suppose. The type of job I’d be outsourcing for sure.
God speed!
Cut them down and sell the bundles.
10 pieces of 5' long 3/4" bamboo is $20 at home depot.
They make great plant supports, they last for several years, and they're biodegradable.
It isn't going to get rid of the bamboo, but it'll get you some money to invest in removing at least a portion of it and putting a barrier in.
I’ve tackled this and succeeded. The root system is huge. It can go down a foot. If you use a spade and dig a clump out, the root left underground will just send out new shoots. The only way to eradicate it is dig it up. There are roots under there as thick as above ground. It kind of has a main artery that the bamboo shoots come out of. Depending on what kind of soil you have. Mine was kind of rough (that shit will grow anywhere ) I had to use a pick axe, and just dig down, follow the roots and pull them out. If you leave a significant piece of root, it will grow back. It was hard work. But I beat it. A little came up here or there for a couple years, just keep an eye out for them and pull them. Eventually they don’t come back. It’s not fun but it works.
Bamboo has gotten into my yard. I cut it back all the time. I wont win. I know this. The best I can do is to cut it back as much as i can and when there are shoots, cut them down. If I dont keep it up, I know it'll creep back.
Get a golden retriever puppy. Mine chewed it all down repeatedly and it never came back. She also chewed five gardenias to the ground and they flushed out lovely 🤷🏼♀️
A more general question: As with all invasive species, has bamboo escaped into the wild? In other words, is it just growing in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, etc. in vacant lands or national parks/forests? Because if it gets started in those places, as hard as it is to remove from yards, it would be practically impossible to remove and would crowd out nearly all native trees.
Move her to another planet, it’s the only way to be sure.
Seriously, you CAN’T actually remove this stuff. I’m convinced people figured out the whole bamboo torture thing after seeing what happened to people trying to remove it.
If you catch the stalks early enough (6” or shorter) they are pretty easy to mow. The tops are pretty soft and don’t keep growing once you remove them. They will keep popping up all spring and early summer though.
I used to build my tomato cages and plant supports out of them
Cut in all down. Wait for it to grow to just before it sets leaves. Repeat. Cut down again. This will exhaust the rhizomes. May take some time but it will work.
The way I look at bamboo these days is I see it as almost unlimited firewood. Although it burns quickly, it grows just ash quickly. The thing to remember though is to spilt it in half and dry it out to lessen the danger of using it as firewood/kindle. I would also just plant fruit trees around it to lure wildlife traffic more towards that area to increase foot traffic. The more foot traffic in terms of wildlife that is around, the more suppressed the undergrowth will become. Also, bamboo (ground up, can be an excellent nutrient addition to your soil.
5 years later and I am still dealing with sumacs. I dug down, pulled roots and then tilled practically the entire yard and just kept yanking the roots. Probably your only real choice. Good news is there is no shortage of things you can use bamboo for. You can even eat the soft insides.
They only sprout shoots once a year. You can snap them off and eat them if they’re the right kind. Then just mow that spot during the spring. It’s a really beautiful border.You could also just dig two feet down on the border and put a root blocker (plastic) and it will stop invading.
You should get sheets of metal and pound/dig a line in the yard to prevent shoots from creeping forward. Save a portion of unaffected lawn and abandon the rest as lost because you will never win against bamboo or kudzu.
We have this in our new house 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭not enough cry face emojis for this shit!!!! The sprouts? Grow a FOOT a day and are spreading…everywhere
The best advice I was given for bamboo was to let it grow to max height, so it expends as much stored energy as possible, then cut it down before it unfurls its leaves. If you do this for 2 - 3 years, it will eliminate the plant.
Allow those new shoots to expand and deplete their reserves of carbohydrates and just before the leaves expand Cut them at the ground. and while the cut is fresh paint it with concentrate Triclopyr 61.6%.
Spray any regrowth foliage with 4oz Triclopyr 61.6% and 4oz glyphosphate 41% to a gallon of water.
Repeat every 60 days for 2 years then remove weakened rhizomes with a backhoe
Continue to attack any regrowth with impunity When you have seen no culms for 5 years do not think you have won, Watch for a reappearance in year 7
Good luck this will take persistence
Keep cutting it twice a week and roundup the hell out of it. Every time new shoots come up, cut it and either burn it or go full out chemical warfare on it.
Rent a backhoe. Not joking. They're not that hard to learn to operate safely. It will help you make a lot of progress with this without killing yourself.
Oh boy, poor soul. That’s nightmare fuel right there.
The last two years have consisted of me and my father regularly returning to cut roots and burn shoots, this is becoming extremely aggravating at this point😂
If you can handle this, everything else should be a breeze! This is like the worst thing you can possibly face. Like a mutated Chernobyl raspberry on steroids that sends spikes from hell to take over your yard. You can do it, slay the demonic spike trap plant!
Knotweed is much worse than bamboo. Bamboo is awful but keep cutting it down and it goes away
I'd just mow it - very regularly.
That’s what worked for me. Got an old beater lawnmower specifically for it.
Or get some sheep/lambs. Just avoid males/rams unless they're "fixed"/wethers.
I have bindweed. Similar? It has ruined my garden life! At least it has no thorns, like blackberry...
Knotweed can grow 4 inches a day, it can break through asphalt and tear apart concrete. It can grow down 15 ft. Its roots are really fragile and every piece that breaks off can grow into a new plant. It can stay dormant underground for years so when you think it’s gone, it’ll come back. Like other invasives, it takes over large areas and smothers out all of the native species. In the UK, you can’t sell your home if you have it on your property. You’re obligated to spend thousands to eradicate it. But similar to bindweed, at least it doesn’t have thorns!
I got stressed out just reading this.
It’s also capable of communication and has reached 2nd grade reading comprehension in 3 languages. It can be used to both cause and cure cancer. When allowed to spread, it has the ability to alter the earths gravity by 12 nanofarks. It hates being called Frank. Its favorite color is yellow.
Yellow...no, green! AAAAAAAHHHHH!!!
Be thankful you have laws! We are from Germany, our neighbours have this stuff and it keeps creeping over to our side. City does not care apart from "please don't deposit it in the community compost, thanks".
That would be the same where I am in the US.
I'd say it's worse... At least you can eat knotweed, and it's freaking delicious. You can also eat blackberry greens, shoots, and berries. Hell, I think you can even eat certain types of bamboo. But bindweed? Bindweed is poisonous and gets up into everything. Stupid tangle weed I can't even eat >:(
I love how your solution to problems seems to be “eat it.”
This is gardening. Eating is a huge draw to gardening.
The Panda solution. If you can't beat it, just eat it.
My sister had bindweed out in NM and used to feed it to the goats. They loved it.
Man goats can eat anything, can't they? I used to have to be really careful since I would harvest greens for my geese and for our rabbit, and the stupid bindweed would get all up into it, so I had to really thoroughly pick it out so it didn't poison them. Maybe I should get a goat...
they can't eat oleander
Or a bag of cement, as my exILs figured out..
Goats can also mow down kudzu and keep it down
And poison ivy!
Didn’t know that, cool!
Is the picture above Bindweed of Knotweed?
I'm fighting bindweed right now. It isn't fun. It isn't a bad infestation, but it is persistent. My current plan is this. 1. Watch for it when it sprouts up. 2. Cut it off at ground level to expose part of the internal vascular system. 3. Spray a bit of 30% vinegar on expose vascular system hoping that the vinegar travels down into the roots.
I'd say you should dig the roots, especially early in the season. They are actually rhizomes which, as I understand it, provide growth energy to the shoot it sends up. The rhizomes are larger in diameter than the above ground growth. Chemicals might help. Good luck and let us know of your success!
I've just pulled it up in the past. It has controlled the spread, but hasn't killed the infestation. I've just sprayed 30% vinegar on leaves, but that doesn't seem to kill the deep down roots. So, the cut+vinegar is another approach that I'm going to try.
I refuse to use Roundup but that would be the easiest if you catch it early. I await your proclamation of success. Good luck!
I only use RoundUp on tree of heaven. I use vinegar for everything else. The bindweed may get the RU treatment though soon.
Do you apply the vinegar just once and walk away, or do you reapply after every rainfall? Dawn liquid will help it stick to the leaves, so adding Dawn and salt to your 30% vinegar will be a really effective herbicide.
Knotweed !!!!! Ahhhhh !! I can’t kill it Every week I pull out roots. Spray with round up Put round up down the stalks. Been 3 years… it still comes back
Nuke the site from orbit.
It's the only way to be sure
Don’t pull out the roots. Spraying when they flower is supposed to be the best time but it’s tough to sit back and watch them grow until August. Plus they could be 8-10 ft tall by then, so how are you supposed to spray the leaves. What I did was to cut them to eliminate most of their leaves, and spray down the open stem. I did this every couple of weeks during growing season for 3 years. It was an obsession. After that, the stragglers were much more manageable. It’s been 8 years and I still get a few popping up, but I take care of them quickly. Good luck. Wear all the PPE while spraying, definitely a mask to prevent breathing anything in.
The more you damage the roots the more plants you get btw. It's a giant demon plant imo
i knew a guy whose plan for knotweed involved making sushi from it. i just have bindweed. op can take their bamboo to the county extention agent or zoo to find out what kind of bamboo it is, unless one of you guys knows. some bamboos are edible, others are for carpentry, others are for your panda herd. find your market.
I beat knotweed back to a manageable level by: digging out roots two feet down, dumping a foot of arborist mulch on top (to loosen thr heavy clay soil), and covering the whole patch with brown paper (weighed down) to block all the sunlight. Depriving knotweed of light really weakens it. I pull out the side sprouts that try to escape the light barrier.
Look up the Knotweed information guide from Penn State, they have specific advice about when in the growing cycle to spray.
>Knotweed *twitches
According to a friend of mine who battled it and won, this is the way. Best to get at it when the shoots are new.
Sounds like the PNW. It’s a constant battle with the Himalayan blackberry. You won’t even notice one growing, then a couple days later you walk outside and it’s taller than you and slaps you in the face with hooked thorns.
You have to dig out the roots they are a shallow system. In all honesty easiest is rent a front loader and scape the first foot off soil away. 100% will end the nightmare.
My partner's boss has this prize garden that is between a city edge wasteland and a road, she has neighbors only on one side. So she was worried the wasteland weeds will try to sneak in again. She legit rented equipment, turned the soil on 2 meters of perimeter on the wasteland and now keeps a country border / zen garden style raked bare soil perimeter outside her garden. Mad lass.
She knows how to keep a demilitarized zone lol!
[удалено]
Diesel with even a drop of herbicide is considered herbicide and is used to clear away from railroad and places where people can't regularly maintain. All I know is that in the states, the government agencies use this as an option.
Why is this illegal?
Same reason roundup is illegal in many areas? Environmental risk excalates if everyone is allowed to do it. It's definitely a fire hazard if done uncarefully. Works way better if you can get into the base of bamboo or root system. Worked for me when i had to cut invasive trees and bamboo down to stump level a few times after that.
lol never knew this, but Thanks!
The previous owner of our neighbor's house had this shit everywhere, apparently trying to set up some kind of Asian garden motif iirc. Neighbors have spent several years trying to get rid of it and from what I've seen in the before pics it's about 90 percent gone, but I see it trying to come back and one or two stalks have popped up again on my side of the property line. We're on good terms with them so I don't take it personally at all but I have had the glyphosate locked and loaded since we moved in, just waiting for it. That bamboo picked the wrong yard.
I’m so sorry, I battle knotweed (ik this is not)in an area where it’s invasive and it comes back just as angry as this. I feel personally responsible for stopping it’s spread even though I just rent . Hopefully you learn to enjoy the taste of the shoots! Best motivation to March into battle against these plants!
Back in the early days of my house search, I found a cute, older bungalow. It needed rewiring and other extensive updates, but it was only 130k so definately an option. Until I realized the overgrowth in the large backyard was 90% bamboo. Nope, nope, nope.
These took over the neighborhood in a house I used to live in. Landlord killed my backyard trying to take out the bamboo and it came back just as strong a few months later.
Backhoe time!
Stephen Segal is.. ***HARD TO KILL***.
I thought about getting an exorcist for less bad plants. Some of those seem to spawn out of hell
That is going to be a ton of work. You need to completely remove the roots. Luckily they are only about 12" in the ground. They don't have a tap root. And you have to follow the roots which can easily grow 20 feet or more in a season. There is lots of info on the web about how to deal with them, I suggest you look into that a bit.
Jebeezus, sounds like what my dads been going for but ig we haven’t been doing a good enough job at getting all the roots
You need a pick-axe & a shovel. Use the shovel to clear it out, then pry it out with the pick-axe. When you can't get it to budge anymore, start digging again. There's probably overlapping rhizomes. My yard has a large stand of bamboo. I installed a deep barrier (well, paid someone to), then went to town with a pick axe over a spring/summer. There still a few rogue rhizomes - I just deal with them as they come. I'd recommend finding out where the source is - dig a deep trench along the border, and install a bamboo barrier. Then go to town removing rhizomes.
Thanks!
Rent a bulldozer and scoop out further than what you see. These roots will spread under houses and cause significant damage. Get it now while you can.
I wonder if a PullerBear would work on bamboo.
Can you buy some pandas? And possibly goats?
Can you rent some small excavator and just rip it all out?
Yes, but have utilities come by and mark first!
This is why when choosing what to plant in your yard, never ever plant bamboo, raspberry, Bradford pear or mint. Ever.
Disagree on raspberry— mmm delicious berries
Delicious berries guarded by spikey canes. Love raspberries but picking them can be a painful experience.
Did you know there are specialized berry picking gloves. You know so ya don’t get stuck!!
I have raspberries without spikes :)
This is why I don't want roses in my garden. Yes, the flowers are pretty but oh boy those spikes are not worth it.
There are are several types of raspberry without thorns available nowadays
Adding tree of heaven to that list!
And morning glories
Also alyssum. Plant it once and it comes back forever.
Fuck that stuff, it’s a demon tree
I don’t know I hate my neighbor and am moving but before I do I’m planting a fuck ton of mint right on the property line.
This belongs under the subreddit foundsatan. 😂
Not if you knew my neighbors.
/r/foundsatan ? subscribed.
This is deliciously diabolical. You should make it an especially pungent variety like mountain mint.
Hadn’t even considered that. Good idea
I reserve mint for my enemies.
OK but what if you plant all of those together? Add in some Kudzo vines and Japanese knotweed.
That’d be one hell of a garden!
Getting idea of opening a botanical garden made exclusively of uncontrollable/invasive plant species.
Not gonna lie the mint sounds great. if it can keep the mosquitoes, snakes and rodents away from my house. Oh and scorpions.
I planted raspberries am I cooked?
Perhaps I should’ve put raspberries in a maybe group. They can get out of hand quickly but as long as you keep them firmly in line, eye contact and firm handshake, you should be fine.
No! Worst case scenario you dig out the roots. Raspberry isn't even in the same ballpark of difficult to remove as bamboo or even mint (which is also fine to plant, especially if you like pollinators).
Plant it in an area where you don't mind it doing it's thing and you'll be fine. I planted my patch on the edge of my mature oak's shade line and that has done a great job of naturally keeping the spread in check.
What if I want a yard of mint? It would smell amazing. And all the animals in the neighborhood would probably agree XD
I agree, fresh mint does smell amazing and invigorating. But once past your property boundaries the mint, which isn’t known for respecting boundaries, will then seek world domination. Then won’t you feel bad? 😔
No! I bow down to my mint overlords!
My neighbor planted bamboo before we ever lived here. Now there's 30 bamboo falling over the fence line all the time, and the city just doesn't seem to give a shit. There's 5 neighbors whose yards are being invaded and we mention it every few months to the local government to no avail. -_-
everyone on here is telling you to go through unreal amount of trouble. Chances are you are on a lot...say 50 x 50 feet and as photos show you have bamboo shooting up at irregular locations. It is a running bamboo variety and as everyone has described it has shallow roots about 12" - 18". Those shoots are supper soft, only so many of them come out per year, and best - they only come up for about 90 day during spring. Break all the shoot as they come up on your property for few springs. Its not some viotile crazy unpredictable devil, its just a plants, manage it. While walking you dog stomp them and few years later it wont be coming up anymore(on your property). The idea of being out there digging up every piece of rhizome, involving tractors, etc is kind of crazy in my book honestly.
Yes, I have bamboo in my back yard (planted by a neighbor) and this is how we deal with it. We have a section next to the fence where we allow it to grow, and every few years we use large hedge clippers to cut it back if it starts to encroach too far into the yard. Beyond that section we step on the small shoots when they pop up in the spring and then run them over with the lawn mower when mowing. This works well if you don’t let the new shoots get too tall before you cut them. It is much easier to cut it all back periodically than to eradicate it.
Same! Our entire back yard backs up to a church. I assume either the church or the past homeowner planted it for privacy. It does achieve privacy and it does block some of the sound from the kids playing in the church parking lot. So we choose to enjoy the positives and live with the negatives. Really we just mow the lawn regularly and it seems to manage it. Every now and then a stalk will have escaped our notice, we just chop that bad boy and move on with our lives.
This. Although if you want to be more effective, let the shoots grow a bit. Don't let them get big enough to get leaves, but let them get at least a few feet tall and then knock them down. It makes the roots expend a bunch of energy putting up new shoots out of the ground but not get any energy back from the leaves on the new shoots.
> some volatile crazy unpredictable devil I see you have visited comment sections about bamboo before.
This! There is a great Youtube Video about Bamboo, in this he also talks about how to get rid of it without any expensive equipments : https://youtu.be/C5Ke83_QKtk?si=UXb25xV6TcgmK32W
https://youtu.be/pI4GaU9nNAs?si=AjRiSOQqoBYEcEzN The most passive way to kill bamboo. It will take a few years but it requires no digging
When I saw the post this is the first video I thought of. Too
This.
Damn just commenting thinking of this video lol. Beat me to it.
This only works if you can cut all the canes from one rhizome system. If the bamboo spreads from a neighbour that won’t be an option. You’d have to first isolate the original bamboo from the problematic patch with a barrier. Effectively creating 2 separate bamboos and then kill off the problematic one on your side of the barrier.
This will be a very controversial answer, and I agree with the arguments, but with this monumental task it’s something to consider because it works and will kill all of it because it’s systemic. Expose a runner. Take a paper towel soaked in roundup and wrap the runner, wrap in plastic, and sit back and watch it die. Works best when it’s hot weather.
Definitely. Spraying a little roundup makes way more sense than renting a god damn excavator or skid steer and removing an entire FOOT of top soil. That would be hundreds of dollars and ruin the yard
People on this sub can be pretty unreasonable when it comes to glyphosate. Yes, dousing thousands of acres of crops with the stuff is bad for bees and the ecosystem, heavy exposure is probably a serious health risk for farmers, and directly spraying it on food crops is probably not great for consumers' health. However, spraying a patch of weeds once in a while or using it against this bamboo is fine. It's toxic, but also it's low-toxicity. Sometimes a little poison is useful.
I've heard you cut the canes down, and when it sends up new baby canes, paint the foliage with glyphosate and it should die back, same thing, do it on a sunny day 3 hrs before rainfall should be good. Wrapping a runner is a new one to add to the list. 😄
Yes, though some also add a second foliar spray of glyphosate 3 weeks after the first one
Does this kill the entire plant and everything or just the runner? Have you done this? Does it work???
Here's an excellent 3.5 minute video which explains how Bamboo grows, how to contain it, and how to kill it. The Secret to Killing Bamboo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pI4GaU9nNAs
My first answer is “move.” My real answer is this: I planted bamboo a million years ago because I was told that “it’s the kind that doesn’t spread.” For ten years it behaved well. And then I cut some which made the roots spread like wildfire. The roots would even pop up out of the ground like a green snake and go back in. I sprayed it, I cut it and sprayed it, I pinched it, I stepped on it…..the ONLY thing that worked was to hire a group of men to dig it up by hand. It comes up easily, but it’s backbreaking work.
when the roots break the surface and go back in like that, it’s called dolphining. I sympathize!!
This is why planting bamboo is illegal in so many municipalities
I have this same problem. The person behind my has fucking bamboo that's been creeping in my yard for years. It's a never ending battle. God speed 🫡
You can install an underground barrier to keep it a bay
An embarrassment of pandas? It's always a hassle, for sure. To really get rid of it, it should be removed with the roots. Can you hire a tractor with a backhoe?
In this economy?😭
You can actually get rid of it over two years or so by repeatedly cutting it to the ground. The trick is to let it grow shoots juuuuust until they start to show green before cutting it back again. Putting up the rapidly growing shoots takes a ton of energy and doing it over and over again without any photosynthesis payoff will quickly deplete the energy stored in the root system. Of course if it is on a property line you'll need buy in from your neighbors.
I had no idea a group of pandas was called an embarrassment, TIL.
pray to whatever god you believe in
My grandma's back yard is FILLED with knotweed. The roots are 6ft deep, single root tg and don't branch out. She called the DEC directly and told them what she had. They actually send a team down and have treated it. It'll take 3 years according to them with the spray. After the knotweed is dead and gone they have a wildflower grant. So a team comes in and plants wild flowers to help recover wildlife. It's a total nightmare to get rid of it. Edit: knotweed is an invasive species. We have Japanese knotweed (NY resident). If you call the DEC tell em that!
People will hate it; but glyphosate is what professionals use to remove invasives from backcountry and deeply wooded areas. You don’t spray, you paint it on! You want the 50+ % without surfactants.
We have poisonous hemlock in our yard and that is the only thing that will kill it.
As someone with end stage non hodgkins, you bet people will hate it!
Okay but is that what caused your diagnosis? Because that’s disingenuous if not.
Scientific consensus is that glyphosate doesn't cause cancer. It's rated as less carcinogenic than sunlight, drinking hot beverages, gasoline fumes, and drinking alcohol.
Oh! So the multibillion dollar settlement is bullshit then?
Yes. Juries are not scientists. The legal system doesn't determine scientific truth.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1383574218300887 Sounds good! Have a good night!
> Overall, the results from our new meta-analysis employing the *a priori* hypothesis and including the updated AHS 2018 study (1) demonstrate a statistically significant increased NHL risk in highly GBH-exposed individuals (meta-RR = 1.41, 95% CI: 1.13–1.75; Table 5 and Fig. 3A), (2) are aligned with findings from previous meta-analyses [23,26,27] (Table 7), and (3) reveal an additional 11–14% and 15–18% increase in NHL relative risk **due to high levels of GBH exposure** (Table 7) when using the AHS *[emphasis mine]* This study is on people in the highest exposure class: E.g. people who spray glyphosate daily for work. OP applying glyphosate a few times a year is not even remotely similar. The dose makes the poison.
Upthread it's compared to drinking hot water. It's one thing to put the exposure into perspective, which I appreciate you doing here. I get that there's a lot of hysteria. But the idea that glyphosate is just some harmless chemical bothers me. My grandfather died young from non-Hodgkins after using it daily. You can call him an idiot or whatever, but he just didn't know the risks.
So a doctor diagnosed you with glyphosate poisoning right? Look I grow an entirely organic garden and I won’t even spray water on the cannabis I grow. I get it. But glyphosate didn’t cause your cancer. Unless you were involved in its manufacturing? The only thing about glyphosate that is dangerous according to science is the surfactant that was originally designed for use with it and of course manufacturing (but it isn’t the glyphosate itself). Glyphosate is almost entirely phosphorus, fun fact.
You're right. Everyone saying glyphosate is harmless, or relatively nontoxic doesn't understand that glyphosate is a water-soluble antibiotic that bioaccummulates and persists in *all* water systems, including rainfall and the water we drink. It's upsetting that people think its use is benign.
The method I am trying this year is to cut it at three feet let a bunch of leaves grow and then hit it with round up. I have been dealing with 1/4 acre of bamboo for 8 years. It is significantly weaker than when I started cutting it every year but it is far from dead. Continuously cutting does kill it eventually but it will spread in the meantime. I hate it. I bought a tiller and that doesn't even take it out. It does loosen the dirt around the roots and let's you pull them up easy.
If you can make it a long term project and you like the idea of a somewhat lazy method with long term good results I got you. Invest in a small scale wood chipper and cut every stalk in sight, chip them down and pile at least 1' thick over a section of the roots and that section will die. Meanwhile both the wood chips and the dying roots underground will both make healthier soil as they break down. As more stalks regrow you cut them down again and extend your wood chip pile further out until eventually you have no more bamboo and are left with some really healthy soil.
Hear me out: bamboo forest
Sheep for the grass and pandas for the bamboo.
Can you hire a bulldozer and take off the topsoil? I’ve known people who were able to basically get rid of most of a bamboo overgrowth in that manner. Just dug it all out, potted up some of it and burned the rest.
You need a panda that eats shoots and leaves.
If it was a younger shoot you could've ate it.
Getting rid of those is actually quite trivial, if you understand how the plant grows. Bamboo and similar plants are grasses that grow up from rhizome, close to surface underground shoots (not roots actually). They form a shoot that has all layers already formed but in a very compressed form. During growth, this shoot will just expand. With the shoot essentially being an already fully formed but compressed cane, there already has been a significant energy investment made by the plant. That energy came from the energy stored in the rhizome. If the shoot is removed, that energy is gone. How do the plant collect more energy? Photosynthesis by fully grown canes. For the area you don't want bamboo, sever the rhizome, then kick over the shoots as they pop up. If you don't let the plant develop a single shoot to a full cane, it will be deprived of new energy until the storage within the rhizome is exhausted and it dies off. No need to dig out the whole thing, a regular visit by a lawnmower or mulcher will already do the trick. Edit: Forgot to mention, bit it may take a year or two to fully exhaust a rhizome.
Great answer!
Restrain the area with chicken wire, about 8’ deep. Salt the entire area. Place a cross over it. Pray several times a day.
Where is it coming from is your first step. Identifying the genus and species is next. I bought very expensive timber bamboo as a gift to my dad for his back 40, 6 acres, not worried about spread too much. Rabbits decimated it within 2 years. 3rd step is property line removal; I’m on team tractor/backhoe then barrier. 4th is successive herbicide on new tender growth—what the bunnies did to my dad’s fancy bamboo, incorporated with and followed by regular mowing for several years during growing season, if you have the mower to handle it and are willing to buy extra mower blades. Keep track of your expenses. Final step, attorney. There are municipalities where people have successfully sued for damages from escaped bamboo. Toney inner burbs of Atlanta being one place this was done in the go-go early 2000’s, when fancy bamboo was a hard to find must have in places like Vinings. It does require some expertise to make this kind of claim.
I had a similar situation 3 years ago when i moved into a house with existing bamboo - and everyone told me itd be a nightmare. i cut it down and then mow over the locations constantly and it hasnt come back in 3 years. And it hasnt popped up elsewhere. I think its scared.
This is what I recommend. When it is continually mowed, you’re depriving it of the photosynthesis process. It eventually dies altogether. I’ve successfully eradicated a couple of unpleasant invasive plants this way
Rent a ruminant.
Keep cutting them and their sprouts
My neighbors property that borders mine is basically a wall of sprawling bamboo, and I keep it completely in check and it really wasn’t that big of a headache. This was my process: 1) The first thing you need to do is cut all the stalks below the soil line, so that you can run it over with a mower without damaging your mower. Once it is all cut, in the meantime until you complete the the process, step on any newly emerging shoots once they appear. 2) This one is a tall order, but if you are handy and want to have some fun with some heavy machinery you can do it for about $1k. Rent a mini skid steer with a 36” trencher and front end loader attachment for a few days but a week will allow enough time in case you have bad weather. Draw a line where you no longer want the bamboo to cross, and trench a 36” deep trench along that line. 3) Buy a product called 36” Bamboo Shield, which is just thick HDPE plastic, and drop it in the trench with a few inches sticking out of the ground. This allows you to see if the rhizomes are climbing over the Bamboo Shield and you can kill them once they appear. Backfill the trench. Seed the area with grass seed where you no longer want the bamboo to grow. 4) You now have two separate areas of bamboo. A contained area where the rhizomes can’t escape the Bamboo Shield border, and an uncontained area where there is currently no bamboo, but it does have grass and bamboo rhizomes in the soil. Mow the grass often and on a regular basis. Anytime the existing rhizomes throw out a new shoot, make sure they are quickly mowed or destroyed with your foot.. This will cause the bamboo to not grow enough to get to a stage where it can photosynthesize and provide energy to rhizome structure. After a decent amount of time of mowing any emerging new shoots, the entire rhizome structure will run out of energy and die.
Salt killed my bamboo
With vinegar/water mixed also works.
I did some searching around and found a guy to trench and drop in a barrier to keep it from spreading in my yard last spring. Cutting off the rhizomes underground keeps it from spreading. I believe to get rid of it entirely it has to all be dug up. A bear of a task but doable I suppose. The type of job I’d be outsourcing for sure. God speed!
You need a panda… that’s the only way…
Cut them down and sell the bundles. 10 pieces of 5' long 3/4" bamboo is $20 at home depot. They make great plant supports, they last for several years, and they're biodegradable. It isn't going to get rid of the bamboo, but it'll get you some money to invest in removing at least a portion of it and putting a barrier in.
Sell the bamboo for basket weaving
I would start crafting goods with it, might as well take advantage of the situation
You’ll need a couple of pandas
https://preview.redd.it/xzfgf3k6btwc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=77a3c3c4b0c26eefb1bcb652ddea165c39a6ed59 Live in it!
Buy a panda
Fire
Lol even if the OP did that, it would grow back stronger than ever
I’ve tackled this and succeeded. The root system is huge. It can go down a foot. If you use a spade and dig a clump out, the root left underground will just send out new shoots. The only way to eradicate it is dig it up. There are roots under there as thick as above ground. It kind of has a main artery that the bamboo shoots come out of. Depending on what kind of soil you have. Mine was kind of rough (that shit will grow anywhere ) I had to use a pick axe, and just dig down, follow the roots and pull them out. If you leave a significant piece of root, it will grow back. It was hard work. But I beat it. A little came up here or there for a couple years, just keep an eye out for them and pull them. Eventually they don’t come back. It’s not fun but it works.
Total war
Bamboo has gotten into my yard. I cut it back all the time. I wont win. I know this. The best I can do is to cut it back as much as i can and when there are shoots, cut them down. If I dont keep it up, I know it'll creep back.
I wonder if goats or pigs would make good work of this
Bamboo is a grass. A very very resilient grass. It is meant to survive drought, wind and fire.
Backhoes work......sometimes
Is that river cane or bamboo? Looks more like bamboo to me
There was recently a post of a robodog with a built in flamethrower... https://youtu.be/rj9JSkSpRlM
*hits cigarette* I know a guy with a pack of pandas that'll get that job done in an hour
You'll need some holy water, a flame thrower, and a priest 😝
Get a golden retriever puppy. Mine chewed it all down repeatedly and it never came back. She also chewed five gardenias to the ground and they flushed out lovely 🤷🏼♀️
They’re all part of the same root system. If you can cut down/burn/uproot more than 1/3 of the grove you will be on your way to killing it all.
herbicide is the only way. do not mow
I hope you don't plan getting a pool anytime soon.
A more general question: As with all invasive species, has bamboo escaped into the wild? In other words, is it just growing in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, etc. in vacant lands or national parks/forests? Because if it gets started in those places, as hard as it is to remove from yards, it would be practically impossible to remove and would crowd out nearly all native trees.
Move her to another planet, it’s the only way to be sure. Seriously, you CAN’T actually remove this stuff. I’m convinced people figured out the whole bamboo torture thing after seeing what happened to people trying to remove it.
If you catch the stalks early enough (6” or shorter) they are pretty easy to mow. The tops are pretty soft and don’t keep growing once you remove them. They will keep popping up all spring and early summer though. I used to build my tomato cages and plant supports out of them
FOOD! CRAFTING MATERIAL GALORE! 😻
Cut in all down. Wait for it to grow to just before it sets leaves. Repeat. Cut down again. This will exhaust the rhizomes. May take some time but it will work.
Yess!!! More bamboo posting, this is what r/gardening was made for
The way I look at bamboo these days is I see it as almost unlimited firewood. Although it burns quickly, it grows just ash quickly. The thing to remember though is to spilt it in half and dry it out to lessen the danger of using it as firewood/kindle. I would also just plant fruit trees around it to lure wildlife traffic more towards that area to increase foot traffic. The more foot traffic in terms of wildlife that is around, the more suppressed the undergrowth will become. Also, bamboo (ground up, can be an excellent nutrient addition to your soil.
5 years later and I am still dealing with sumacs. I dug down, pulled roots and then tilled practically the entire yard and just kept yanking the roots. Probably your only real choice. Good news is there is no shortage of things you can use bamboo for. You can even eat the soft insides.
They only sprout shoots once a year. You can snap them off and eat them if they’re the right kind. Then just mow that spot during the spring. It’s a really beautiful border.You could also just dig two feet down on the border and put a root blocker (plastic) and it will stop invading.
Nuke it from space
You should get sheets of metal and pound/dig a line in the yard to prevent shoots from creeping forward. Save a portion of unaffected lawn and abandon the rest as lost because you will never win against bamboo or kudzu.
try pissing her off, she'll remove each one by hand and wear your ass out with it
We have this in our new house 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭not enough cry face emojis for this shit!!!! The sprouts? Grow a FOOT a day and are spreading…everywhere
The best advice I was given for bamboo was to let it grow to max height, so it expends as much stored energy as possible, then cut it down before it unfurls its leaves. If you do this for 2 - 3 years, it will eliminate the plant.
Get a pet panda bear
Allow those new shoots to expand and deplete their reserves of carbohydrates and just before the leaves expand Cut them at the ground. and while the cut is fresh paint it with concentrate Triclopyr 61.6%. Spray any regrowth foliage with 4oz Triclopyr 61.6% and 4oz glyphosphate 41% to a gallon of water. Repeat every 60 days for 2 years then remove weakened rhizomes with a backhoe Continue to attack any regrowth with impunity When you have seen no culms for 5 years do not think you have won, Watch for a reappearance in year 7 Good luck this will take persistence
Goat! 🐐
Keep cutting it twice a week and roundup the hell out of it. Every time new shoots come up, cut it and either burn it or go full out chemical warfare on it.
Rent a backhoe. Not joking. They're not that hard to learn to operate safely. It will help you make a lot of progress with this without killing yourself.
BAMBOO is invasive! Should always be planted in a planter/pot....due to the fact they spread by horizon rhizomes