My bamboo experience

by Bill
(North Alabama)

My experience thusfar (7 years now) has been that the stuff sprouts three different ways, all three types shooting up in the springtime.

1. Tiny, delicate, bushy tufts that hug the ground. These grow very slowly but do become bushes. They look like adorable little Bonsai plants. Pruning shears cut them, no problem, but they tend to re-sprout in the same location, I'm assuming from the roots that remain.

2. Slender shoots that are about 1/2" in diameter and are green right out of the ground. They Grow very fast and must be cut soon before they get any firmer. They grow about a foot per day. They do not sprout back in the same place.

3. Enormous, waterlogged red shoots anywhere from 1 to 1 1/2" inches in diameter. These grow a minimum of one foot in 24 hours once they sprout and are over 6 inches tall but can be easily kicked over (soccer style) at ground level when about a foot tall and they don't come back in the same spot. Once the weather gets hot, these don't show up very often unless we get lots of rain.

I love the appearance of this plant but it has become horrifically invasive and has to be eradicated. I have about 1,000 square feet of bamboo to cut down. It will be VERY tedious, but it has to go. Rhizomes have caused sprouts to shoot up as far as fifty feet from the main stand. The network of rhizomes will be impossible to dig up with a shovel. It's like trying to put a shovel through a pile of 1/2" steel fishnet. I'll probably have to hire someone with a Bobcat to dig them up for me.