I had a Golden Retreiver once who loved bamboo shoots. Never had a problem once he learned how yummy they were.

I (stupidly) planted dwarf bamboo in one small section of my yard about 20 years ago and, although I surrounded it with a vinyl edging that was about 8 inches deep, it has begun to spring up everywhere around the outside of the area. It has travelled under a cement sidewalk into my azalea bushes and even under the width of the driveway and spread to the other side of my lawn. Whenever I give it a "haircut," I make sure to get up every last piece of leaf that is trimmed to hasten the spreading, but obviously that hasn't helped that much. Mine is growing about 4 feet tall in the middle of azalea shrubs -- how do you kill that without killing the shrub?

I wish I had an answer. Someone planted bamboo at our home years ago. It had since pretty much taken over. We have a hot tub in the corner of the yard, surrounded by bamboo. Believe it or not the bamboo has taken to trying to grow out from under the brick patio in front of the hottub destroying all my husband's hard work. It also grew up somehow through the hot tub motor and we managed to cut that shoot off before it destroyed the hot tub. The stuff is really just incredible.

The only way to get ride of bamboo is NOT TO PLANT IT.
I have burned it. I have dug it up. I have cut it and filled the remaining tube with Concentrated Round-up and any other chemical I could obtain. Seems all I have done is get it mad. Any one know of any agent orange drums lying around in a land fill or toxic waste dump? Will try any thing once.

SALT!

Rasputen,
Is that true, or are you kidding? Have you really been successful using salt to kill bamboo? If so, how did you do it? Please? We have bamboo creeping into our yard from the neighbor's grove, and I really don't want to use any dangerous chemicals.
K.

I have a love/hate feeling about bamboo.It seems to me graceful and beautiful, but there's no denying its aggressiveness. I've allowed it to spread into part of my garden but then realized I needed a barrier. Spent too much money, but here's what I did: rented a Ditch Witch, dug a 100' trench about 30" deep, and laid some thick plastic 32" deep that I got online from a company in Wash. or Oregon. This has kept all bamboo out for 6-8 years. Leave 1" of plastic aboveground so you can see where the bamboo curls over the barrier; easy then to sever it. I forget exactly the thickness of the plastic, but it's slightly thinner than an aphalt shingle.
Hawkeye, do you just hate it, or do you simply lack the space? Might some bamboo form a nice background for your shrubs? I find it beautiful year round.

This bamboo is way outta hand. My Dad planted it many years ago to grow FISHING POLES! It now has fully overtaken about 1/2 acre and runners and sprouts extend at least 100 feet, Last fall a shoot came up in the middle of the shop and quickly grew up with no sunshine. I am now trying full strength Roundup. I want to try salt but don't know how it is to be applied. Any suggestion Rasputen? I probably will try the ditch and barrier.

Salt may not be a "dangerous chemical" but it will persist in the soil and you won't be able to grow anything else there after the bamboo. Really not the best choice of a weed suppressant, although I can understand desperation when dealing with the heinous curse that is bamboo. The people who plant this stuff other than in very stout containers should be impaled on its emerging stalks.

One of my good friends purchased a house with a large stand of bamboo all along one side. I told him to give up on getting rid of the bamboo quickly, but he has really (and amazingly) gotten rid of most of it. How did he do it? Hours and hours or REALLY hard labor and a lot of roundup. And I mean gruelling physical work! He still has to keep a close watch because it will spring up out of nowhere even though it appears to be gone. It's a real chore, but it CAN be done. Good luck! - Ais.

Round up and brush killer are most effective in the fall when sap is transmuting from the leaves to the roots. Has anyone tryed soaking a sheet in roundup, covering the bamboo and staking a piece of plastic over that(to try to keep the roundup moist)

Kudzu was mentioned earlier. If there's anything more invasive than bamboo, it's kudzu. Please don't plant it.

My brother eventually got rid of about a 1/4 acre of bamboo growing on his farm by repeatedly bushhogging the area. the bamboo kind of wears itself out recovering each time. but it took several years of doing this to wipe out the whole patch.

You can get generic roundup (glycophosphate) concentrate in HD Landscape. It is the same chemical. I bought a 3 gallong container for $35 last year. It doesn't work as fast as the consumer roundup, but it's a lot cheaper. We just cut down some evasive eldeberry and I poured undiluted glyco into all of the cut stalks.

I bought a house with tons of bamboo and have paid a student to cut it down. I'm now just relentlessly cutting new shoots and using Roundup--a biologist friend says that if it's not allowed to photosynthesize it will eventually die. But I'm posting because the property was also covered with kudzu--which climbs over the bamboo to launch itself into trees and because of the bamboo, you can't reach the kudzu roots. So no matter how bad each is individually, both together are a nightmare.

Incidentally, I also have invasive English ivy, poison ivy and wisteria. Luckily, I have a sense of humor as well.

I think I figured out the kudzu answer. He may have meant that kudzu is so horribly invasive that it would cover the bamboo and smother it out! That might actually work, but then you'd have the worse problem of the kudzu!

This is more of a question than a response to Hawkeye's question, but I have also been 'bamboomed' by bamboo that had a few sprigs and very little growth for the past five years. This spring about a hundred new shoots came up a few inches. I figured I'd take care of it when I returned. Now a week later these have shot up to 6 to 8 feet and growing several inches per day. My question is: Which is the best killer? I've heard about Cross Bow, Brush Kill, RoundUp, Kills All, and now salt. Any comments?

It is comforting to see that there are others with the same opinion of bamboo that I have! I have been fighting my neighbours bamboo for fifteen years...the only way that I have found is to ruthlessly cut it down when it matures and run down the shoots with the lawnmower. You can beat it back, but it never really goes away.

I hear that the bamboo in china dies every 70 years...only fifty five years left to wait!

Mine is from the neighbors'. 1-2 inch diameter, 15-40 ft high. Bushes when big stuff has been cut down.

I got them to agree to let me trench around it when I had to replace our water main (large chain trencher) a few years ago. I put in 24" wide stainless-steel flashing (50-foot rolls). That stopped its spread and allowed me to attack my side of the problem.

Right around tax day, the new, soft shoots start up--the big stuff can grow about 3+ feet a week. I stomp (big boots) and/or cut those off (hand-held digging axe) every couple of days for about 2 weeks until gone. This left only the old stuff, which after a few years started to die off normally, but it still "lives".

I have tested techniques on sections of it. Here are some of the techniques that have worked to varying degrees for me. You have to get it ALL or it just comes back.

Brute Force: Pickaxe spade and dig it up. Works every time.

Mowing: I use my old mower with a Gator(tm) blade at a low height. Just keep it mowed low enough and it eventually wears out and dies. This with herbicides on the leafy stuff works if you're persistent (never let it get ahead of you).

Mechanical Force: Stump grinder down about 6 inches throughout.(Rather messy.) Mine is a fairly shallow growth, but not sure I got it all. Those stump grinders throw stuff everywhere!

Herbicides: Cutting off at the base (low as possible) with branch pruning shears or chainsaw. Immediately fill stump hole with herbicide and coat the outside of the stump:
1) Straight RoundUp when actively growing
2) Arsenal AC (growth stimulator) mixed with RoundUp if not actively growing.
or
3) Brush-B-Gone any time.
4) I also used one of those Total Vegetation Killers (Triox?) that seemed to do some serious damage to even the full grown stuff. You have to clean the ground to bare soil (no leaves or such) to apply to the bare ground.
Don't like using these as a general practice. Doesn't seem to be a guaranteed kill. Might be too many other roots off the main rhizomes or its too deep.

I re-connected with a friend of mine who may come over with a backhoe. My hero. Always the best way--let someone else do it for you!

If you can, flooding with water (submerge the ground) for at least 1 week (2 preferred) will also kill it. The water needs to soak well into the ground. This will be my last resort. We have a creek nearby. I will sandbag around it and pump from the creek.

I will endeavor to persevere...Man versus nature.

I naively gave my neighbor permission to plant bamboo along our fence 15 years ago. I had no idea it would run so wild. Now it's to the point that it would be impossible to dig trenches as it's even gone down into ditches and up to a terraced area. Makes me wonder what's to keep it from going under a barrier? I donÂt have the funds or the ability to dig a trench to even put in a barrier. I'm using a water pressure sprayer to expose the roots, and plan to cut them with a chain saw, spray Bayer vine and stump killer then mark them with spray marker paint when dry and cover them again with soil. I hope to be able to check if any new growth occurs. I have been using concentrated super Round Up on the new shouts this year rather than cut them off so it will hopefully kill the root then marking them with spray paint to keep track of what IÂve sprayed. I know it kills the new shoots, but not sure if it really kills the root system. Salt hasnÂt worked at all for me.

My neighbor planted bamboo in her yard.It crept under the fence,into my yard.It became a pretty good stand,growing about eight foot tall and traveling to my lawn area.I finally cut it down,and then dug down into the soil(and it wasn't easy)and chopped and pulled the roots out.It was a lot of hard work,but I finally got rid of it.

What did I do about my bamboo situation---MOVE! I had planted different varieties of running bamboo about 15 years ago--it was too late when I realized what I had done. Yes, they are beautiful, they look beautiful in full summer and in the heavy snow (I live in North Jersey). But when culms started reaching 30 plus feet with ever expanding width, it was beyond any control. I had a Southern Magnolia in the back which is on the frontier of the grove and believe it will eventually be overwhelmed and chocked by the bamboo. Running bamboos should definitely be sold with a warning label. PS. I have since converted to clumping bamboos on my new property.

We have been dealing with a smaller version of bamboo (equisetum hyemale) for 2 years now here in mid-MO. Commonly called scouring rush horsetail or just rush. It creeps into crop fields from ditches and banks and was just taking the fields over. It can't be plowed up- every little root piece will sprout a new plant. We found a ditch full of very dead rush, managed to track down the owner and got the "recipe": 6 oz per gallon of each of the following- Roundup, Crossbow, Rangestar and surfactant. This is very toxic so you can't use it around pets, you have to have complete coverage on the plants, and you'd have to wear protection. Very expensive as well, but you do what you have to do. I feel for you all that have this monstrous stuff in your yards.

To jmwe29:
Any additional details on this killing solution or web articles? Is it sprayed or poured? On Individual plants or entire area? On mature or immature plants? What type surfactant? Soap? Any indication of damage to wildlife animals? Anything other info?
Thanks

We use 15 or 25 gallon spot sprayers on the back of a Kawasaki Mule. On a smaller scale, a pump sprayer will work fine. You have to spray when the plants are in full, active growth when it's plenty warm, but not stressed by drought. The chemicals are systemic- they have to be absorbed thru the "leaves"; the leaves are teensy, which is why this stuff is so hard to control. Mature or young plants, hit them all. The stuff doesn't work from the ground; you have to get it on the plants. As far as surfactant, we've just been using what they use in the field from the elevator- farm stuff. I have no clue what you'd use in a home situation. It's cheap; you might
check farm supply places for info on small quantities. Yeah, maybe dish detergent would work, though it foams. I don't know. Laundry detergent might be a better bet. Make sure it's all mixed well before spraying. And be prepared to spend a bunch on these chemicals and to have to treat more than once. We've got large areas of dead rush now, but new shoots around the perimiters, so we'll be hitting it again.

I went the length trying to find answers online and from chemical companies directly and came up empty. It was just chance that we happened to see that guy's dead rush that day, and that he happened to be home at the time.
Extension service didn't have a clue either. As far as wildlife concerns, you'd just about have to download chemical labels (usually pdf files) to see for yourself. One major concern was getting this stuff into water. If
you've got a creek close where it might run off, that may not be a good idea.

It's pretty much a matter of ganging up on the stuff with herbicides in strong concentrations and several kinds at once. Many won't want to use poisons this strong and I can understand that, but when you're desperate, you're desperate. Farmers have tried to dig it up with equipment and succeeded in only spreading it. Roots are too deep.
(Bill- sorry about the repetition; I decided to post directly to the website as well.)

Oh God you poor fellow sufferer.

I have bamboo at the side of my yard. It is a constant struggle to keep it within bounds.

I once found it growing up inside my hot tub. It had also ran under the cement patio and started burrowing up underneath it.

I fully expect one day to find a shoot among the living room floor carpet.

It is extremely invasive. My husband digs trenches, and tries to keep them out that way. But you always have to be on your guard.

We found strictly by accident that turpentine kills bamboo. It is made from Larch pitch and is environmentally friendly. It shrivelled up the bamboo over night. It's only drawback is it is really stinky!!

I too was naive enough to let my neighbor plant bamboo in 1982! As you can guess, it has a real strangle hold on my yard and woods. I've just started attacking it in earnest, and am thankful for any and all suggestions. I've started cutting it down, leaving about a foot. How do you get rid of the poles? If I chip them up, should I worry about them growing, or should I burn them? Also, how do you use the turpentine method? Thanks!!!

Turpentine is an organic solvent. Its vapor can irritate the skin and eyes, damage the lungs and respiratory system, as well as the central nervous system when inhaled, and cause renal failure when ingested, among other things. It also poses a fire hazard since it is flammable.

I had (key word) running bamboo spreading over my raised drain field about two weeks ago when I cruised to this site for some ideas on how to stop it. (I HAD to stop it or look forward to replacing a drain field in the next year or two! $5000 in this town)
after reading the "cut the stalk near ground level and get 47% Greenout on it before the sap recedes (15 seconds), I decided to go a step further:
I tried to kill weeds in our yard last year with Spectracide for Southern Yards in the hose mounted bottle, and nearly killed the whole yard in my impatience, so I KNEW it could be a real "bad boy" if given the opportunity.
I had some medical syringes left over from a vitamin D regimen.
Combining the two, I injected the stalks about 4-6" above ground level with 1.5 mm of undiluted Spectracide and incanted the mystical gardener's spell: "DIE, DAMN YOU!"
(don't forget this, it's the MOST important part!)
Two days later, all offenders were in compliance, and the chemical contained in the area of offense.

You guys are going to kill me... perhaps I should keep mum... I eat my bamboo shoots and enjoy them. Whatever escapes and grows to full size is later used by my teenager to make medieval battle weapons - he runs an MBA at school and needs them all the time. My bamboo is, um, heavily used and not really spreading. (I am covering my head).

During hurricane Ivan my beautiful yard got on the Crazy Train. My kiwi won't produce fruit (posted query in kiwi forum) and the bamboo from hell appeared. We cut and cut but no joy. I hesitant to use strong chemicals because we have pets and recently began flooding. I thought about somehow containing it with flashing but it's gone to far. The thing is I have vintage camellias and azaleas. I know they are there because I see the blooms peeking through. Right now we are refugees from the flood of April 29th so no pets. What can I do, immediately, eradicate or at least contain the aggressive growth. Flashing for containment but how deep? What Chem and how applied?

During hurricane Ivan my beautiful yard got on the Crazy Train. My kiwi won't produce fruit (posted query in kiwi forum) and the bamboo from hell appeared. We cut and cut but no joy. I hesitant to use strong chemicals because we have pets and recently began flooding. I thought about somehow containing it with flashing but it's gone to far. The thing is I have vintage camellias and azaleas. I know they are there because I see the blooms peeking through. Right now we are refugees from the flood of April 29th so no pets. What can I do, immediately, eradicate or at least contain the aggressive growth. Flashing for containment but how deep? What Chem and how applied?

It takes fortitude, EVERY day!
A barrier works, 2-3 feet deep(old corregated roofing is good). Cut anything that comes over.
Full strength Roundup or Spectricide applied with cotton gloves over rubber gloves EVERY day to new growth.
Or EVERY day cut down any new & all new shoots.
I hope you don't have another job, you will be busy!

I like my bamboo, but when it comes up in March I decide which ones are in the wrong spot and give them a kick...at about 3 to 4" it just falls over dead. If it gets a little longer I mow it, and if I decide to wait I cut it with a chain saw and use the canes. Why not embrace the bamboo? I have built a beautiful fence for free and have plenty of plant stakes. It is not a big deal to keep in bounds...I have black and noble.

To contain bamboo you must contain the roots-rhizomes...dig a 12 inch deep trench and lay a pressure treated 2x12 or fill the trench with quick Crete. To kill existing areas cut to ground spray saturate with water...place 10 mil clear plastic over and cover edges with sand or dirt in summer heat it will get 150 degrees under and kill everything .

Well howdy, folks! I'm back again after my lengthy post from June, 2007.
So where am I? Bamboo free and mostly without chemicals, as banned by She Who Must be Obeyed.
I took a Sawzall with a demo blade and and cut down about 100, 1 to2-inch diameter, around 25-foot tall stalks of bamboo. Then I just used my old mower to keep it cropped down low.
The bamboo wasn't all ours, being mostly in the neighbors yard, and they didn't want to part with theirs. Not until about 2 years ago. I couldn't get the flashing everywhere on their side and it managed to sneak around, so they said enough was enough. They hired some help to clean their side out and let me loose. They also wanted to avoid herbicides.
So I got all to agree to the minimal approach.
I had scored a used friggin' huge pool tarp off Craigslist for $5. It would cover about half of the bamboo grove. I would put it on there for about 2-3 weeks with bricks around the edges. During this time, mow the other portion. Then switch the two. I would go the what was left of the small growths, cut them off with hand shears, and apply Brush-B-Gone with a small paint brush to the whatever I couldn't get out. It did not take long. Here we are. Late April. Bamboo shoot season around here is about tax day, April 15th. No bamboo. In fact, during the winter, I was pulling out the dead runners of the old stuff. This run gets great sun and will become ours and our neighbors vegetable and flower gardens.
This yard is clean.
Photo is a 180-degree panoramic (this is what they like). Left is recently tarped, neighbor's shed center, right is untarped (spring weeds), and the tarp is far right, covering some weeds and skunk cabbage we need to get rid of.

There are many kinds of Bamboo, some of the Bamboo are clumping & will not take your yard. Plowing the under ground stems up & rake them up & burning them works well.

Hawkeye is there an old Hercules plant near you?

Maybe they saved agent orange just for you.

Adopt some puppies and teach them to like veggies, then teach

Them to dig for bamboo. Mine will dig up sunchokes and potatoes

And eat them. Where were you when I tried to find a home for some

Of them(puppies that is). Found one finishing off a whole bunch of

Celery on day, wasn't sharing with siblings.

Luck

Our neighbor has a grove of bamboo that invites itself into our yard.

1. Bamboo will rarely or never take over a thick/mature/healthy/diverse stand of native vegetation. It just can't get enough resources. Bamboo thrives where there are natural "disturbances" to the forest (fallen trees)...or where humans under-utilize landscapes by keeping turf grass lawns and specimen bushes. If Bamboo is running amok in your yard, you need to establish more vegetative biomass. Plant more natives of different types.

2. The Bamboo trying to invade my property springs up all along my back fence a week after heavy rains in the springtime. Sometimes the shoots will be taller than I am. But it takes me only about 20 minutes to chop down the whole crop with a spade. I only need to do this a few times a year. We gardeners like to brag and moan about our battles with invasive species, but 1 hour of weeding per year is hardly a hardship.

s8us89s

I disagree with #1.

I have seen 4 different size bamboo take over marsh,sandy hills &open forest.

It crowds right in & fulls the smallest spot, no mater what it is growing up against.

You're probably right. I've been lucky so far and I catch it early. In an open forest, there's nobody to weed and one stray shoot could become a colony in no time.

Four kinds of bamboo dose not make me IKE- I Know Everything.

I could be wrong, just what I have seen said other wise.:)

You have seen 2 or 3 more types of bamboo than I have. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king!

The bamboo that people here are lamenting about is that persistent, spreading, cancerous type. We wouldn't be here if we could just pull it up or rake it out and be done.
The stuff I got rid of used to sprout in the spring, with big, soft, 1-2 inch diameter monsters. The kind you can eat. Yes, I spent a couple of years stomping them down before that got hard and 20-30 feet tall just to thin out the grove.
However, when I eventually cut it all down, it changed its tactics. It started sending up small, short sprouts all summer long that would bush out. Just enough to keep the root system below alive. Even mowing it didn't stop it. It would keep itself like a grass. Just enough.
We come here to share our extreme methods for managing this most challenging foe.

Your bamboo sounds like mine. It's thick, soft, hollow, with a watery substance inside it. In the first few weeks, it's so fragile that I can push it over or crush it with my foot. After a year though, it's like a tree trunk. I can't go into my neighbor's yard and chop down his Bamboo. So I will be stuck with it for as long as I live here. Luckily, I have what is becoming a thick stand of native trees and shrubs that has been relatively good at keeping the Bamboo out. I could place a root barrier under my fence...but then my thirsty trees wouldn't be able to crawl into his yard for water. It's a war. And as I long keep planting taller trees, I will hopefully relegate his Bamboo to the margns.

@s8us89ds ... yeah I have a similar war going with my neighbors English ivy.... it is a large stand of it.. about .75 acre and can grow onto my side 2 ft in a week! I dug out a 6 inch deep trench and filled with quikcrete smoothing the top with a trowel... now I just run the weedeater down the cement break and lop it off before it can drop roots on my side....

Awesome!

My new neighbor planted bamboo right up next to our fence line about 1 yr ago. I knew right away that he had no clue what problems he was causing for the both of us. We told him how damaging & uncontrollable bamboo is but he insisted it was so pretty he wanted to keep it. Now about 1 yr later I am finding 4-6 shoots in my yard, one almost 8ft long. I found a herbicide called Crossbow at HomeDepot that is supposed to work on pest trees & the label even says bamboo. I mixed up a few water bottles with Crossbow & placed the runners that came under my fence inside the water bottle for a nice long drink. I'll report back in a few weeks/months on the status of those plants. Crossbow stinks horrible & I can't imagine anything living after this stuff. Hopefully it will take care of my problem. Hate to loose peaceful relations with my neighbor if the whole plant dies but I would hate even more to have my yard invaded with this pesty plant.

If you plant a running bamboo, you MUST be prepared to control it. Otherwise, I would worry about lawsuits. In zones 7 plus in the East (the West is a different planet), bamboos can become a nightmare despite the pretty foliage. I regularly mow mine down in the back, depend on hungry deer..., and, if all else fails, I hear that goats are great for eating the young culms. So, far it's a balance for me. But I keep up on things. Not the plant to plant for the lazy, disengaged gardener!