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Old 05-01-2020, 04:47 PM   #5
Rich Z
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dennis Gulla View Post
I wish I had your problem! I have bamboo on my property that was here when I got it. Hate it! Don’t know how to kill it or get rid of it! Spreads like cancer. I have several squirrels on my property and they don’t touch it! I hate squirrels for a different reason, they dig holes in my yard!
Cut down all the culms (shoots) and keep at it every time you see a new shoot come up. Eventually it will die off from lack of photosynthesis. Bamboo can't live on the rhizomes alone.

I recently bought a small trencher so I can cut some trenches and put in 20 inch deep barriers to keep the bamboo from getting into our fruit tree groves. If your bamboo is over in a neighbor's yard, you will need to separate the rhizomes at the property line and find some way to keep the rhizomes from growing back into your yard. Or coordinate it with your neighbor to cut down all the culms everywhere and just keep at it.

Matter of fact I am preparing to cut out a stand of yellow vivax that I put closer to the house than I should have. The culms tend to get real funky looking with dirt and lichens, so it's just not as visually appealing as I thought it would be. New shoots are spectacular looking, but within a couple of years, well, not so much.

The game plan is to cut down all the culms and then allow any new shoots to grow up just to the point where they start to put out leaves. This will cause the rhizomes to expend their resources a whole lot quicker, and hopefully just kill it off completely in a year or two.

I've had the bamboo groves going for almost 25 years, and it is only in the past year or two that it has made itself known getting into places I don't want it going. I didn't want to contain it, because there are more places I don't mind it going than there are places I don't want it.