dragonhawk

Okay, it looked cool when we bought the house 5 years ago, but the stuff runs everywhere.

Cutting it back only lasts for about a week. Then it sprouts again.

There are roots like a web under our yard.

Any suggestions?

Ashton

badflsh

Ashton has it right. If its possible, instead of spraying the round up you might want to use a brush to paint it onto the leaves. This way you can use a much stronger mix without having to worry about over spray being blown on to other plants. It kind of depends on how much you have as to whether or not that is feasible though.

DelayedReaction

Have you considered a Daisy Cutter?

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clavus

Bamboo = bad news. The roots will break through just about anything, including concrete. Follow the amighty Ashton's advice. You are in this for the long haul, my friend.

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dtheriault

you know what's worse. my neighbor behind me has bamboo. he has a "japanese garden." except these japanese invaders just won't stop.

it's all over the back of my yard. it goes under 5 feet of concrete to work it's way over.

i went to a nursery and they sold me "grass getter" it's sethoxydim really strong stuff about 4oz makes a gallon and costs 20$. i put it on the shoots undiluted with a paint brush and gloves. i just started using this 2 days ago. i hope it works.

dt

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MSD

A friend of mine had this problem. His conclusion was, like Homer Simpson, that if you try to stop it, "You're doing that the sucker way, you need a little 'Vitamin G' [Homer begins dumping gasoline all over the weeds]"

He didn't try super concentrated roundup, but the regular stuff didn't work.

JStrider

a lot of the concentrated roundup type plant killers WILL NOT WORK without water added... because it wont get absorbed properly or something.... thats what the guy at the lawn store said when we were buying some...

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Munku

Wow, my dad is totally into bamboo and stuff. He loves reading about it and has many different types out back, I'll ask him what he thinks and what he should do.

Big T

If you want babmboo then it MUST be in a container ... otherwise the stuff is terrible to keep under control

Jolt

I've fought with a crop of the stuff for years. between my neighbor and I...we've applied practically every chemical known to harm plants to the patch between our garages...yes, including some things you really shouldn't put anywhere...but the stuff is like the Borg, it just adapts and keeps coming back. And yes, it can even poke through the concrete floor of a garage!

Three springs ago I bought several rolls of felt paper (usually used for roofing) at a local discount supply place...the stuff poked right through it. the next year we pulled it all out and plunked down a new layer...not nearly as much came up through...last year we just lumped another layer over what was down. This year there's a healthy crop of every other imaginable weed that grows in this area, but the accursed stuff seems to be beaten back to a fraction of its former self....

We're not rid of it yet but it looks like we're winning the fight.

btw if there's someone you really really don't like...pull up a couple shoots by the roots and plant it in their yard...biological warfare...<efg>

Randerolf

Only sugestion, but a final solution would be to buy a bag of salt (like the fine kind that people use for their water softeners) and use salinization to kill the bamboo.

Just a thought.

dragonhawk

Thanks for the tips!

I hired a guy to cut it down to the roots, now I am going to go get the round up and soak the ground with it to kill those damn roots.

I am begining to think that the "Lucky Bamboo" stuff that is popular right now is a plot by those Japanese Garderner guys to take over the world...

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dimbulb

You guys got me intrigued... so i went looking.

something interesting that i found was this.
Add FERTILIZER. or rather... chop it down, add fertilizer, wait till it sprouts profusely. Chop it down again, add more fertilizer. The point is to exhaust the food stores in its roots. then do the carpet/tarp sunlight deprivation thing.

Seems to me like its the same principle. Deprive it of food, by exhausting its food reserves, and depriving it of sunlight.

hmmm..... does this make sense?

dimbulb

I was reading somewhere that you should actually dig out the roots itself.

This thing is kinda like grass, so cutting off the leaves isn't going to help very much.

you'll need to carefully dig down into the ground, and remove all the rhizomes(roots), which is where its food is stored, by hand. try to take out all the little shoots and runners underground too.

if its not too late, perhaps you should put up a root barrier as well, around the area of infestation. slant it, so that when the roots encounter it, it will grow upwards, out of the ground, where you can chop them off. I believe concrete works fine. Since plant roots will take the path of least resistance, in this case, they'll grow upwards.




bamboobamboobamboo//clean area
bamboobamboobambo//clean area
bamboobamboobamb//clean area

Jasmar

home made napalm

dragonhawk

Thanks dimbulb, I may try to wear it out. That shouldn't hurt the other plants or the soil in the areas too much.

Can put down root barriers, it would be most of both sides of my yard.

I may try getting a tiller, chop up the soil and roots, pull out the soil and roots and put in new topsoil.

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"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

dtheriault

i forgot about the salt thing. my best friend and i had to tear up bamboo from his mom's back yard. when we were done we used rock salt and salted the hell out of it. worked pretty well. i might trench between our property and put a rock salt barrier there.

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Unless you are the freakin Highlander, what is the point in learning how to fight with a sword?

WhoaitsZ

rent a panda?

toxic515

Whoaitz: LMAO new business idea: rent-a-panda wa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Salt WILL kill it... but it'll sterilize that area for a long while.

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sacman10

Yep I have tried to get rid of the stuff for 2 yrs now.tried everything mentioned so far...next step is Rock Salt in the morning..............let ya know how it goes

dragonhawk

Mine is under control now.
We hired a guy who cut it down below the ground line.
Now I just keep it mowed/weedeated...

I did salt one area that was bad, and it has not come back yet.

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"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

runtuff

Triox works, it essentially sterilizes the ground for 6-9 months. Trick is to apply it to all the areas you want to treat. Triox kills everything, trees too!!

tropple

Well, you could always let it grow and make some nice bongs out of it.

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BigTruck1956

gotta dig it up. its the only way. Worked in my yard.
glad you got it taken care of though

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Tracybrian

Bamboo is crazy. Even if you dig it up unless you get every single root they will come back. Do you want to plant in the area again? If you do I would not put too much gas or salt in the ground. First try to retard it with concentrated roundup in two or three weeks after daily spraying , after its showing signs of dying off dig out all the roots and remove a lot of soil with it. Also roundup works best when the plant is healthy. Then saturate the ground with a good pre-emergent infill the area and to finish stake up tarps on the ground because you want to kill off all sunlight that might help the evil bamboo grow. Leave the tarp on for a long time and make sure there are no holes. I am not even sure if you do all that it would work. But if you are going to pay some guy to do it you might as well do it right.

Hard8s

There is a place called Bamboo Giant around here, went to their website and found this interesting article. http://www.bamboogiant.com/html/Installation.html its mostly on installtion but they do talk about controlling the growth and spread of it with barriers. Take a look. Rereading found this quote on
"Removal

The best way we know of to kill bamboo is by prolonged flooding. In the winter, berm the area around the bamboo and flood for about 2 weeks. "

Of course you can always hire some gophers!! The other pest common in California is the gopher. They love bamboo and will keep your plants from spreading by eating the new shoots.

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jn_lego

I'm currently doing some property maintenance - driveway seal trimming etc.
Customer has bamboo growing in the front corners of the house.

one of the corners is right beside the driveway, and, the bamboo actually grew threw the pavement. Poked a perfect circle threw the pavement.

I was planning on cutting it and soaking the stem with a plant killer - however after reading this I dont think that will work.

does anyone have any suggestions besides cutting the pavement and digging out the root system?

thanks.

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- Jeff

Shadowex3

bamboo isn't just like grass, it IS a form of grass. The actual "bamboo" we think of as a plant are basically just little pieces of a larger organism, think the anthill mound on the surface vs the actual anthill itself. You've got to kill the whole organism or it'll just keep coming back up. However you do that is your choice: digging, poisoning, or depriving of light.

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fatboss

I had some bamboo in the garden when I moved into this house. I got rid of it after a few crazy attempts (electric saw, fire etc) with nothing more than one of these;



and a lot of hard work! But it's worth it if you want rid of it.

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Tully Mars

Napalm?

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Cimarron29414

I had a bamboo problem at my house, so I sold it. It's someone else's problem now.

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conntaxman

I have been trying to get rid of my bamboo for about 2 years now, this year it is about 80 percent gone. I think I have found a mixtrue that works very good about 30 days ago. I use for example 50% round up,30% Auto Break fluid and 20% water.So far this is killing it the best, and fastes, also i think it is killing the Roots better.All I know is as soon as I added the ...Automotive Break fluid to it, it works great.
Now I just put it in a small utillity bottle and spray the new growth.
This is some tough stuff. To bad tomato's and stuff didn't grow like bamboo. ha ha ha
Have fun this summer with it.Also dig up as many roots and remove the very small one's also.

Shadowex3

That's... very unwise for at least two reasons. The first is that you're mixing complicated chemicals without knowing how they will react to each other and the second is that even though afaik modern brake fluids don't run straight ethylene glycol it's still not the best stuff in the world for people and animals.

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chinese crested

Interesting tips. Am currently waging war with what is now stumpy the pampas grass. Sorry op, but seeing someone with a worse problem (and dealing with it) is rather uplifting and encouraging. We tried hedge trimmer - or rather son did - I am not allowed near it since I sliced through the cable. I have been out with a bill hook, sheers and a saw. After we have cut it, I sprinkle the wounds on the plant with vinegar, chanting in my head 'die stumpy die'. I was thinking get it down real low and cover it with a black bin bag so it can rot, or put down some barbie briquettes and let it long slow burn. (might that help with hacked low bamboo?) I am reluctant to use chemicals as I want to grow veggies there, and then theres the worms, and where would the gardener be without those friends.

Vincent George

Killing bamboo is something I've had success at doing, when we cut ourselves a signal is sent to the brain, our brain then sends out clotting agents to seal the wound ..same thing happens to a plant, but in the case of a plant the seal is a gas. It takes about 3 seconds for a bamboo plant to release its gas, so the best way to kill it is to cut them one by one and quickly spray or dab roundup at the cut.

Daniel_

Get a panda

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Overhead, the Albatross hangs motionless upon the air,
And deep beneath the rolling waves,
In labyrinths of Coral Caves,
The Echo of a distant time
Comes willowing across the sand;
And everthing is Green and Submarine
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Doitselfmomma

Question my neighbor planted Bamboo it has got out of control I have asked them on 2 different occasions now its taking over back yard growing right into my garage foundation.
I'm a single parent so I have to count my pennies what can I do to make them be responsible and how can i make them be responsible where is the liability. Look i really need help this is my first home & I'm helping my daughter go to college i'm broke please can someone point me in right direction.

The_Jazz

Your best bet is to make them take care of it. If they won't or can't, you don't have much choice. You pretty much have to kill all of it - either by digging it up, poisoning it, prolonged flooding or prolonged light deprivation - it's just going to continue to be a problem.

There is liability if their plant is causing damage to your property. If their tree fell on your house, their insurance company would pick up the damage. You can try to find a lawyer to help you, but it might cost you something.

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korbas12

1. Use a post hole digger to dig holes around and through the bamboo root system.

2. Drop dynamite into the holes, running the wires out. Fill the holes back up.

3. Detonate the charges.

4. You should now have a hill of rubble. Saturate the hill with gasoline and ignite.

5. After the flames die down in several days, saturate with Roundup or your choice of poison. Wait 30 days.

6. Saturate with salt and cover with a concrete sarcophagus. Use paint and stencils to apply warning messages to the side.