Bamboo - the stuff keeps on coming!!!

[FletchingStraight]

Blinking bamboo that's come in from neighbour who had it planted without any barrier had spread 20 ft into our garden. Long back story but old lady went into a nursing home, family couldn't be arsed & did nothing, allowed us to poison it but it still spread & even worse this year.
Anyway as she died last year & new neighbours only in a few months we bit the bullet & paid our gardener to dig it all out. He got all the rhizomes out & we thought it was sorted. Two weeks later it's sprouting all over the area he dug out. It's not coming from a rhizome, perhaps from a tiny bit of the thin, hair type bit of roots like you'd expect with bindweed but it's not supposed to do that. There's loads of it again!!! What the hell do we do with it now??

Sounds like it’s got established. Our neighbours have bambo against our fence. DH drives a spade down a few inches along the fence line every month now as we found it about six foot across our garden popping up. It seems to spread just under the surface here.

not for bamboo but for hog weed, our DS got a syringe (the injection type) and injected weed killer into the stems, he had to keep it up for a while but has now got rid of it.

Would weed killer kill bamboo ?

you need a rhizome barrier along the length of the fence. It is a pain to do but very effective when in place. My DH went to scrap yard and found a roll of some type of metalj which has done the job.

It's not coming in from next door now (yet) it's sprouting in our garden from tiny bits that the gardener left. It shouldn't as they're not proper rhizomes, it's acting like bindweed & regenerating from small pieces of root!

Yes. It's a grass at the end of the day. You would need to get it onto the leaves though. It's no good pouring toxic substances into the ground to kill it because the chemicals would hang around and kill anything else within striking distance as well.

It's extremely difficult to remove.

Best course of action is to excavate the soil in the area it was growing and remove from the site. Obviously this is a massive task. Bamboo will regenerate from literally a spec of rhizome. Some varieties are being recognised as almost as invasive as Japsnese Knotweed.

https://www.environetuk.com/bamboo/removal are a well respected company

A sustained application of glyphosate to new growth (not longstanding) will often work, but requires very frequent application to leaves, or as another PP has said, injecting inside the stems. Autumn is a good time of year to do this as most plants start drawing down nutrients to their roots to prepare for winter.

You can see here what I'm talking about. Re growth from tiny pieces, they're all over the place!! I can't paint the leaves, they're too small, I can't inject into a root, they're too small. It's an area 15-20ft long by 3-4ft wide in places.
I think I'm going to move house at this rate!!!

@colouringindoors my gardener assured my that it wasn't possible for it to regrow from a small amount of root, like bindweed would, it needed to be from the rhizome itself. I still asked for him to remove ALL roots. But see my photos there's clearly regrowth from small roots.

Tree surgeons are trained to deal with it. I had one out last week who advised to keep treating with weed killer and pulling up all the spurs and it will eventually go. There’s a really strong weed killer you can use (sold on eBay). License users can get it 5x stronger - it might be glyphosate that it contains - can’t remember. He said he would just treat it with weed killer but you can sink a barrier in the ground - such as paving slabs or a weed suppressant fabric to stop it spreading - more expensive!

Argh thanks @Happyher this is infuriating me. It's in the middle of the garden & it would need a barrier a few inches over the ground level to be effective which would be a complete pain in the backside. May just have to resort to glyphosate as it's so widespread & such a large area. Nothing can grow there until this is dealt with.
Why did an 80yr old woman think she needed a privacy screen for goodness sake!!!

Depends on weedkiller. Systemic weedkiller is inactivated in the soil. But principle remains, apply to fresh active growth.

Why did an 80yr old woman think she needed a privacy screen for goodness sake!!! You think your need for privacy will suddenly evaporate as you age? 80 year old women are actual women you know. You may even be talking to some on this thread.

Mu ex-husband dug down and it seemed everything he found a root he could follow it for 6' until he got it all. In the end we poured weed killer into each one that came back. It did the job. It took about 3 months.

Yes I know about systemic weedkiller, but other types do poison the environment and the soil long-term.