Please tell me how to kill bamboo

without killing my shrubs that it is wickedly invading
My neighbor has this "wall" of bamboo that grows in my yard evey year. We just redid the yard and now my beautiful arborvites are being invaded by this crap. I used to use round up and it worked, but it will kill everything in the vicinity
Any advice or suggestions?

Re: Please tell me how to kill bamboo

Posted by 1stimemom

without killing my shrubs that it is wickedly invading
My neighbor has this "wall" of bamboo that grows in my yard evey year. We just redid the yard and now my beautiful arborvites are being invaded by this crap. I used to use round up and it worked, but it will kill everything in the vicinity
Any advice or suggestions?

Re: Please tell me how to kill bamboo

Honestly, nothing short of napalm or Agent Orange..... We've had bamboo since before we moved in our house 13+ years ago. We've tried everything we could think of. At this point, we just try and contain it so it doesn't take over the entire yard...... if even one underground shoot is still alive, it will grow all back again. Since it spreads underground, you can't even tell where it is or where it's going sometimes.

Re: Please tell me how to kill bamboo

Posted by annoyedTTCer

Posted by 1stimemom

without killing my shrubs that it is wickedly invading
My neighbor has this "wall" of bamboo that grows in my yard evey year. We just redid the yard and now my beautiful arborvites are being invaded by this crap. I used to use round up and it worked, but it will kill everything in the vicinity
Any advice or suggestions?

Best thing you can do is contain it to his yard. Bury a border in the ground 6-12" deep to keep shoots off your side.

After that its hard to kill whats on your side without damaging shrubs, you need to get the poles plus the shoots underground

Re: Please tell me how to kill bamboo

Posted by GoldenRod

Honestly, nothing short of napalm or Agent Orange..... We've had bamboo since before we moved in our house 13+ years ago. We've tried everything we could think of. At this point, we just try and contain it so it doesn't take over the entire yard...... if even one underground shoot is still alive, it will grow all back again. Since it spreads underground, you can't even tell where it is or where it's going sometimes.

Re: Please tell me how to kill bamboo

It is so annoying and unfair!!!!! Just because these people decided to plant this crap, MY plants ( and wallet) suffer. When we bought the house, there was an AG pool that we had to take down, b/c bamboo grew through it and broke the liner Is there NOTHING I can do about this?

Re: Please tell me how to kill bamboo

If you drive by our house, there is always a pile of bamboo on the ground. We are constantly pulling it out of the ground. Even DS knows to pull bamboo out when he sees it... Even with pulling bushels of the stuff out every few weeks, we still can't get rid of it....

Re: Please tell me how to kill bamboo

Posted by GoldenRod

Posted by annoyedTTCer

Posted by 1stimemom

without killing my shrubs that it is wickedly invading
My neighbor has this "wall" of bamboo that grows in my yard evey year. We just redid the yard and now my beautiful arborvites are being invaded by this crap. I used to use round up and it worked, but it will kill everything in the vicinity
Any advice or suggestions?

Best thing you can do is contain it to his yard. Bury a border in the ground 6-12" deep to keep shoots off your side.

After that its hard to kill whats on your side without damaging shrubs, you need to get the poles plus the shoots underground

Even a buried border won't stop all of it.... we have bamboo in areas that have all types of borders. It's very pervasive. It can travel dozens of feet or more underground before popping up again.

Re: Please tell me how to kill bamboo

Might be a crazy idea, but I would consider calling your town to see what your neighbor's responsibility is. They may have nothing on the books. But I'd be curious to find out if they have any responsibility to keep it from invading over property lines at all.

I've seen tv shows where they excavated with a backhoe and it still came back.

I'm afraid as long as you live there, you're stuck with it. This is why I'm so against buying things because they're pretty, without knowing anything else about it.

I'm really sorry you have to deal with this!

Message edited 5/19/2009 3:01:32 PM.

Re: Please tell me how to kill bamboo

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Re: Please tell me how to kill bamboo

Wow-I didn't relize it was so invasive. I live in a co-op & there is one private home that borders the co-op proprety & they planted it in there yard & it does come up under the fence, but it is in a wooded area, so you can't see it.

Question though, what do you mean by a buried border?

Re: Please tell me how to kill bamboo

Re: Please tell me how to kill bamboo

Posted by greenfreak

Might be a crazy idea, but I would consider calling your town to see what your neighbor's responsibility is. They may have nothing on the books. But I'd be curious to find out if they have any responsibility to keep it from invading over property lines at all.

I've seen tv shows where they excavated with a backhoe and it still came back.

I'm afraid as long as you live there, you're stuck with it. This is why I'm so against buying things because they're pretty, without knowing anything else about it.

I'm really sorry you have to deal with this!