How do I get rid of bamboo? Lots of small ones, that is.

[FannyPriceless]

Hi gardening gurus. Please help. We have moved to a new house and one area of the garden has a lot of small bamboo plants dotted around, thanks to the previous owner.

I am aware these can go crazy so want to get rid of them. What is the best way? They are all about 12 - 18 inches high, and are all over the place so assume they have already been merrily spreading.

Do I pull them up? Do I spray? What's the best time of year? Any help much appreciated.

Scrumptious - thanks so much for the excellent advice. I shall eagerly await my spring-time bamboo killing spree.

In the meantime I am keeping busy removing the giant plantations of pampas grass. What were the previous owners thinking?

Fanny when you snip the bamboo in preparation to poison it, cut it at the top end of the lowest section above the ground (iykwim) so that you are leaving only the section which you will be poisoning, but leaving as much as you can of that section in order to get as much liquid into it as you can.

Pampas grass is probably what the previous poster had in mind when she posted about burning. Burning is actually a good way to refresh your pampas grass and an accepted method of renovation! It will sprout back happily after a good burn.

Fanny you do know about pampas grass on the front lawn being the old signal for 'Swingers live here', don't you?

Love Truly
(RHS)
(that's what they teach us in the RHS)

What do you do Truly? Obviously something horticultural but you clearly know your stuff.

I'm a trained gardener (as opposed to an untrained one ) and garden designer with my own business.
I also am an event production manager and stage manager.
Whatever pays the bills - think I've got lone parent workaholic disease!

Bloody Hell Truly, you sound very busy.

Truly, I wish you we're closer to me. I need someone to sort my garden. It was beautiful but boring when I moved In but my chickens have destroyed it!

Yes we know about the true meaning of pampas grass! More frighteningly, our neighbours said they have spent the last three years since they moved in getting rid of the stuff that was in their garden.

Don't want to think too much about what used to happen here. This is a nice, quiet village!

This is a nice, quiet village!

::Cue spooky music or, alternatively, I'm The King Of The Swingers::

Just be thankful, Fanny, that it didn't turn out to be Japanese knotweed.

Where are you Grockle? I have some clients in London and elsewhere, I travel for a lot of my jobs. I can arrange a one day blitz on your garden - sometimes with two of us workers, depending on the level of chaos to deal with, and I'll throw in a consultation/plan of action so you can move ahead and start to cope on your own.

Truly, I'm In Dorset. My main issue is getting the chickens locked away. Once I figure out an effective but aesthetically pleasing was of doing that, I'll be half way there. My last garden was beautiful with flowers & a veg patch. This one looks like a farmyard

OK, the time has finally come to attaack the evil bamboo. Clear weather forecast for the next week.

Just re-reading the advice given here, am I right to understand that there is no point spraying the leaves? We have to cut each shoot off at the top of the lowest section, and treat that?

I couldn't find any Round-up with a syringe, so I got the one with the very narrow spray option. Am I on the right track?