I'm not talking about Queens, NY either...
Do any y'all know what those are?
They are bamboo shoots - from my backyard!
There's a shut-in/hoarder diagonally across from our backyard. Anyway, her yard was so overgrown that the town stepped in and cleared it out. She's still there though, collecting, amassing, etc.
But from her back yard into all of her neighbors' has spread this bamboo. What's scary is that I chopped it all down and yet it's coming back.
In fact I read that bamboo is an *invasive species*; that it's the fastest growing plant on earth (but not as fast as Big Government!); that it has an underground root structure that is resistant to weed killers; and it can only be eradicated by a compelete physical removal of lots of soil - so much that you will have to bring new soil in.
Yikes.
And apparently this has become an epidemic in this area. Towns are passing ordinances banning residents from planting it.
Of course it's likely too late for that. And it reminds me of that Nile Monitor Lizard problem in FL which was probably introduced by pet owners.
Anyone else ever have this bamboo problem?
6 comments:
years ago my first job I worked cutting grass and maintaining the grounds of a large swimming pool club in VA.
One of the tasks that I did not care for was pulling weeds in the parking lot. Then one day one of the managers had us mix HTH Chlorine in a watering-flower bucket with water and pour the mix on the weeds in the parking lot. We poured the mix at 8am and by 5pm most of the weeds were dead and turned white. It turned out the best way to kill the weeds was to do this 2 or 3 days in a row so the roots and the seeds of the weeds got killed too. This worked great on hot summer days w/ no rain.
http://www.amazon.com/Arch-Chemical-41230-Chlorinating-Tablets/dp/B005QJTLPU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1367423253&sr=8-2&keywords=hth+chlorine+tablets
If you do not want to try the HTH route try bleach which is basically water and chlorine.
busy body environmentalist neighbors may not approve
try it for a few or several days and then dig up plants with a shovel make sure you get the roots and seeds if they have any
I had Japanese bamboo which looks similar to what you showed. I chopped them down and then painted concentrated blackberry killer on the exposed plant. The remaining plant turned black - like a chemical burn. It definitely works best on hot days. It destroyed some of them. However, I too found that the only way to remove them is by digging out the roots. It took me three years of weeding with sporadic intense root removal to make them regress. I still see shoots in my yard occasionally - 5 years later. It is a formidable opponent. Best of luck
5 years? Yikes.
One thing I'm petrified of is digging into the ground.
I'm always fearful of injuring my wrists or something that would threaten my golf!
Look how dry that ground is. I think that the spring, while annoyingly cold this year, has also been a drought.
It looks like asparagus. Kfell
We spent 3 years in Florida trying to eradicate the bamboo my neighbor planted on the property line. My husband injured a knee from all the digging and had to have a knee replacement. The knee was never right after that and he still walks with a limp today. We finally paid 3,000 dollars to have a concrete barrier installed and it has held the bamboo back for now. Barriers of all types are NOT a permanent fix for this problem and the bamboo will eventually get around, over, under, or through the barrier. There is no barrier on my neighbor's side, and human nature being what it is, I am happy about that because their bamboo will get them first!
Hi Carol,
There's just GOT to be some liability on people planting this stuff.
I'm overseas this year and worried that when I get back, without me there nipping it in the bud, my yard will be overrun with bamboo.
I tried whacking the roots with an axe....and the axe simply bounced off!
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