Bamboo

[bamboo3]

Hello,

Any expert gardeners help me with bamboo?

In our rush to gain privacy, we bought several bamboo plants. They are "golden bamboo" and "black bamboo".

They were planted mostly into the ground with a bamboo specific root barrier with a couple in pots due to location. I have now read multiple horror stories of it growing into concrete and into neighbours. Am I right to be worried? My partner thinks I'm overreacting.

What have your experiences been?

We inherited a clump of golden bamboo (and were told it's the non invasive clumping type) but it started to run wild sending up shoots metres away from the clump. We had to get a tree surgeon in to remove the clump and then we dug over the garden to remove every last rhizome (also checked neighbour's side of the fence). Tree surgeon said he's constantly dealing with the bamboo that was fashionable to plant ten years ago and that even the clumping varieties will go rogue in the end, as ours did 😩

So if you planted it recently, it'll be fine for quite a while but you may want to remove it before it becomes a problem!

I was about to post but @Turkeyhen nailed it. I'm in Melbourne and had to get some big lads out to move two clumps of clumping bamboo which began to run. I've still got two and am eyeing them up for destruction.

My neighbours planted some last year, it’s around 2 metres from my house, it terrifies me &that @Turkeyhen has just strengthened my fears.

Currently dealing with my neighbour’s bamboo that has spread through to our garden and is popping up all over the place, also en route to bursting up through our new shed floor.
Husband has spent hours trying to dig the thing up….
Very stressful…

You could put root barrier on your side, or dig a trench as a preventative measure if neighbour can't be persuaded to remove it. Our clump was huge (ten years old or thereabouts) before it went rogue and although it was disruptive to remove we completely eliminated it without any further problems. It had come right up to the house walls but not caused any structural damage.

OP you are right. Your partner is sadly wrong.
It ALWAYS spreads.
If my neighbour planted bamboo 2m from my house I would sink a barrier into the ground. Probably metal. It is crazy stuff. It goes through tarmac like it's butter.

There is bamboo growing under and in between the brick walls where 4 houses meet at the far end of my garden - no one can get to it properly to get rid of it and it's now spread under 3 separate brick walls and in small gaps behind out buildings that are built against the walls.. We'd all have to remove our sheds/outhouses and knock down the brick walls to get the roots out now. It's totally beyond control.

Just get a panda - problem solved

We have bamboo coming through from our neighbours garden and we are constantly cutting it down. I am worried about how it is spreading.

Does weedkiller work on it?

Yes I would add to the chorus. Do NOT plant in the ground. Especially near your house. It may be ‘clumping’ but eventually it’ll send runners and yes, it’ll go through brick and concrete. It’s a thug.

Nope. As it will just shoot off in another direction. It goes in lines under the top of the soil. Then periodically it will send a shoot up and thereby you get another bamboo growing.
They naturally grow in huge forests. Very very tall.
Difficult to dig out.

Best solution really

We had this problem with a house next door to ours. Bamboo looks for a water source and it was growing in and around our pipes, popping up through the grass and under the fence. We spoke to our neighbours about it and thankfully they could see the problem in their and our garden and had it professionally removed. It was a big job as there was so much. The guy that removed it said in the summer it can grow an inch per day. It’s awful stuff.

I'm of the opinion it should be illegal to sell it in this country tbh.

My neighbours got some and I keep a nervous eye on it.

Ours grew a foot in a day one summer. It was mad.
An amazing hedge, really protected the garden fences in the winter storms. But when it came up through the paving slabs on the road on the other side of the fence we knew it had to go
(We did not plant it)

I agree it should not be legal to sell/ plant

Thank you for all you replies.

As I thought then, I will need to persuade my partner that it needs digging up (it has been planted for just over a year).

We have a bamboo root barrier in place and it is next to concrete fence boards at one side. However, I do not want it to spread (hoping it hasn't gone too far yet).

I wish we had more advice about it when we bought it. As although it's nice to look at I would never have purchased it.

It’s worth a-try. It’s in the grass family, which is very sensitive to glyphosate. That’s a systemic, so will also deal with any runners that are attached to the main clump. It will take several applications. But physical removal is preferable for the environment. If yours hasn’t started running, phyical control should work.

https://www.rhs.org.uk/plants/types/grasses/bamboo-control

Our garden was full of it when we bought the house. We’re getting rid of it in stages:

1. chop it down
2. put tree root killer on the stumps (needs to be done in autumn)
3. cover stumps with plastic over winter
4. dig stumps and runners out

Digging it out is HARD- it’s taking us about a day a clump. We’ve found that the best way is to use a big iron spike thing to lever out the runners, then a beasty shovel with a serrated edge to dig as far under the clump as possible.

We think ours was planted between 10 and 20 years ago. To be fair, OP, we do have one clump with black stems that hasn’t spread at all. The spready stuff is all quite boring green with the odd yellow bit. Also, thankfully ours hasn’t gone under the house- we dug out a few runners that has gone right up to it, but then turned and run alongside it instead. Apparently the bits you need to deal with are the horrible sinister spiny bits that look like dinosaur bones protruding out from the soil- those are the ones that will continue to spread if you let them.

As a PP said, my preferred solution was panda.

@LoobyDop
any recommendions as to where to get the big iron spike thing?
My husband is tackling it everyday (from neighbours) but it is so hard and he has a bad back.
Anything I can find to make it easier!

@mechanicalpencil we borrowed ours from my FiL, but husband thinks somewhere like Screwfix is your best bet. Haven’t seen them in B&Q. It’s a proper beast of a thing, I have to work quite hard to lift it, but you need something really sturdy. We snapped a standard garden fork.

We also bought a house that had bamboo planted in the garden. Several clumps, different types. When some started to run amok we decided to remove the lot. We hired some peeps to remove the biggest rogue and watched how it was done. DP enthuses about the wrecking bar that he then bought to use on other clumps. It's 36inches long, made of steel, has a goose neck, it is really really strong and unbreakable. The length is required for leverage. Will try and post a link of something similar to the one we have. (aka crowbar)We waited a year before replanting in case anything popped up nothng did). And contrary to some reports, black bamboo can run if it wishes to do so.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Estwing-EWB-36PS-Gooseneck-Wrecking-Bar/dp/B00DT0OY0A/ref=asc_df_B00DT0OY0A/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=226606326869&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=4507787990119126149&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9045614&hvtargid=pla-423268995838&psc=1&mcid=68ba1ddc41d73f18823bf6c60484e3e9&th=1&psc=1