The previous owners of my property (I've owned it for 5 yrs) obviously thought they were adding some diversity by planting a clump of bamboo to the perimeter of the front lawn. Now, I'm being placed under seige by overnight growths in the lawn that are up to 35 ft away from the original cluster. I have cut the original plant to the ground and liberally applied a product called EcoClean (25% acetic acid), undiluted, to the remaining stems. My question is: Will this permanently eradicate this problem plant? Please advise!! Thank you
Vinegar won't have any major effect on running Bamboo. Mowing regularly will starve it out but will take years to accomplish. Fusilade II or similar herbicides may hasten the process. http://btgrowersupply.stores.yahoo.net/fuiituandorh.html
Quickest way involves a lot of work, but as saltcedar says, most alternatives will take time. I'd dig a trench around the perimeter of the clump, locate all the rhizomes that are leading into the lawn, and manually pull/dig them up...you'll leave long divets in your lawn that will need refilling, but with persistence you'll get the entire rhizome, and should hasten eradication. I've pulled 30' lengths of rhizome out of the ground in this way. When this is done, you could either place a rhizome barrier in the trench, and enjoy the main clump without fear of running, or remove the main clump in sections. Any remnant bits that shoot next season can be manually pulled.
We're in the process of having running bamboo removed from between our house and the neighbours. The bamboo was there when we bought our house 11 years ago and I wish we had read up on it before it became a major problem! Not only did it make it's way from the back corner of the house to a cement planter in the backyard (and choking out the azalea that was in there), it spread across to the neighbour's foundation and poked through his basement ceiling!!! I've read that rhizomes don't go deeper than 12", but in our case they had to dig down three feet to get at them. I would stay away from bamboo altogether!
I thought black bamboo would be q good idea. I was wrong!! I'm in Connecticut and will gladly donate - give it to whoever want to come a get it and take it away. It's attractive but - well, you know.
Let the suckers grow a bit - then sucker punch them! Cut the stems between the nodes leaving a section of "tube" above the first leaves, if possible. Get an old syringe (minus the needle!) and put 5-10 ml of undiluted Roundup or other glyphosate formulation in each "tube". It will die-back along the rhizome. Enjoy. My neighbour wonders why bits of his large clump of bamboo adjacent to our property line die-back unexpectedly. I have never enlightened him, but I don't have his @#&*! bamboo running amok in my garden any more
May I add that glyphosates work best when the temperature has been consistently warm for a few days. Above 18c/ 75 f
What are Some Common Temperatures? Besides the temperatures at which water freezes and boils, it’s handy to have a few additional point-of-reference temperatures to give you a feel for the two scales. For example, the temperature of a pleasant day at the beach is 75 degrees Fahrenheit or 24 degrees Celsius; the temperature of the human body is about 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit or 37 degrees Celsius; and a typical oven baking temperature is about 350 degrees Fahrenheit or approximately 175 degrees Celsius. For example, imagine you’re traveling in Europe and are told to stay hydrated since it’s going to be 40 degrees Celsius. How hot is that? Well, just multiply 40 by 1.8 to get 40 • 1.8 = 72 and then add 32 to this to find that 40 degrees Celsius is equal to 72 + 32 = 104 degrees Fahrenheit. So, yes, that’s mighty hot indeed! And that’s all there is to converting from one temperature scale to another.
Black bamboo isn't as bad as some of the other Phyllostachys (in terms of spreading aggressively). Most older clumps I've seen have remained fairly contained to a limited area. Here's a good primer on bamboo control: http://www.lewisbamboo.com/controlling-bamboo.html. Note that in areas where one has a bit of space, root pruning and barriers aren't necessary: as per the provided source, one can just kick over or mow the new shoots. Not helpful where rhizome seeks out the neighbour's alternate vision of paradise, but useful and effective in many situations.
