Controlling the spread of bamboo

[Turnipinatutu]

The house we're buying has a gorgeous long garden, but one of the neighbours has a clump of bamboo growing in their garden. This has spread into 'our' garden, although the current owners have obviously kept mowing over it and is also made its way into the garden the otherside.

We were planning to put a garden cabin near to the area it's growing. Is it likely to cause any problems to this?

Can we control it's spread at all? Or are we heading for a complete nightmare?

We are really looking forward to doing things with the garden. Is the bamboo going to become the bain of our lives?

I'm afraid it's very hard.
You'll have to make some sort of barrier underground to stop it going any further. The root systems are so hard you need to dig around then saw them out.

What's best to use as a barrier? I've read that the shoots can penetrate concrete!
Do they travel down very far?

I don't think they are deep roots but yes they're strong.

I'm wondering if I can dig them up and burn them with blow torch?
Not sure fits the clumping variety or the running.....

Even if you did, it would grow new shoots. It sounds like one of the spreading varieties.

So if I put some sort of barrier dug into the ground along the fence line, dug up and burned all the shoots, they would still carry on growing?

I don't know for sure but I think I heard about some sort of Toxic stuff that you put on the cut stumps that kills off the roots - it may not be suitable for your situation

Mmm.... not sure about using poison as we have animals and the bamboo is near a stream.
I'm wondering if it would easier to control if the area is a regularly dug flower bed or a regularly mown grass area.

Napalm - it's the only way.

If you put a barrier in and dug them up then blow torch wouldn't make much difference?

Probably of you stick a concrete base down then the roots will go under it or around it rather than through it. Put some lime down under the base too.

Or a panda.

It is very invasive and really your prospective neighbours/sellers should be sorting this out as it is inadvisable to plant bamboo in a bed without a barrier or being in a very large plastic pot (even the clumping sort).

I have bamboo but in pots but a friend is suffering terribly from her neighbours bamboo. It is really sharp when it starts poking through the grass and her children have to be really careful in the garden otherwise they get speared by it.

It could easily become the bane of your life.

You could get a specialist nursery in to lay a barrier but it needs to go down quite a bit so you'll need a trench all down your fence or you could DIY. It might be worthwile getting advice?

I use the Big Plant Nursery in W Sussex and would recommend them. They are very good with advice over the phone too.

www.bigplantnursery.co.uk/sundries.html

I think you are being very wise to tackle this as otherwise it will be a never ending problem.

Bob Flowerdew,organic Gardner and all round good egg says everything dies if it has no leaves.So keep cutting it back and cutting it back and eventually it will die although this is a long tedious process.

Thanks for that link Deux, very useful I'll call for their advice as I don't know which type it is.

Sandiy, I think cutting the leaves will only work if it is severed from the main plant. But I'll try anything!

Don't want to fall out with the neighbours over this, but it does seem quite irresponsible of them.