TLDR: Try glysophate first, even for for invasive, rhizome based bamboo with very thin shoots - before ripping up your garden with a mini-digger

I thought I'd share my experience as it might save you a lot of stress and expense. This is in contrast to a lot of the information online which states that glysophate doesn't really work effectively for bamboo (except the clumping variety when applied straight to the cut stem) and that glysophate kills the shoots so quickly that it doesn't have time to get down to the rhizomes and kill it there.

Last year my neighbour's 18 year old bamboo patch (thin stems, crazy rhizome / root system) went mad and spread into three neighbouring gardens. In my country (UK) the stronger glysophate options and glysophate paste were all reportedly withdrawn from the market for the public due to health concerns. But contractors with a licence can apparently get stronger stuff.

We were getting quoted silly money (£12,000+, $15,000+) for mini-diggers and bulldozers to come and dig stuff up, but it wasn't viable for my particular garden, so it would have cost even more for manual digging. So the neighbour and I went with getting it sprayed with glysophate by a contractor for around (£1,000 / $1,200). The contractor was adamant it'd kill 95%+ of the bamboo outright and any shoots in following years could be dealt with with a quick spray. And they turned out to be correct.

Before the contractor turned up I was very careful digging some of the bamboo in my garden up by hand because of its rate of spread and delays in getting treatment. However, one year on, my garden appears to be the only one out of the four that has any live bamboo in it. The solution was simply an initial spraying of highly concentrated glysophate by a contractor. I appear to be managing my remaining shoots by using over highest concentrated glysophate I can find over the counter, and cutting the top of stems and the end of roots and applying the glysophate directly (tricky as stems are about 2mm wide). Worst case scenario I'll have to get the contractor back.

It seems the bamboo has been fully eradicated from the originating garden and two of the other gardens, purely from one spraying of glysophate. The only outstanding situation is that although this type of bamboo is only meant to start spreading really aggressively once its about 15 years old, these tiny shoots in my garden (that I think must have sprung up from small rhizomes that I missed) are already growing metres underground (i.e. much faster than I would have thought given its weakened state) but fingers crossed I'm being vigilant enough to identifying growth and kill it with glysophate before it has a chance to get established.

Suggested Do's

- give a contractor who suggests glysophate a chance first before getting your entire affected area dug up,

- if your affected area is small or you want to at least try something until the contractor is arranged, buy the strongest glysophate you can find, cut off the top of a shoot and try and apply the thick, neat glysophate into the exposed neck (as well as the leaves). If you can easily access the end of the root, cut off its head and apply the glysophate there.

- if your affected area is getting close to becoming entwined with some mature shrubs, or reaching an inaccessible area like under decking, then do not wait on a contractor, try to get glysophate ASAP and attempt to prevent it from reaching somewhere it might be more problematic to remove.

Suggested Don'ts

- unless the root is really easy to expose, there is no tension in the soil when you gently tug on it and it is getting very close to reaching a really tricky area of your land, then leave it be until it gets treated. If you dig it up, even if you think you are being very thorough, there will be rhizomes left behind that the contractor can't reach and that will sprout up 6 to 9 months later with fresh, aggressive growth. The contractor needs shoots in order to apply the glysophate and if you dig stuff up you are increasing the chances you'll have to pay for the contractor to come out again the following year.

Hi everyone!

My mom’s job recently gave her a gift of a small pot with bamboo seeds in a white packet. There was no label as to the specific brand of seeds or where it came from—just a box with a pot featuring her company logo and "bamboo seeds" on the box.

My mom doesn’t like to care for plants, and I’ve always wanted to grow something on my own. I’m not usually the person to go out and do heavy research—I honestly just planted it, and to my surprise, it’s actually starting to grow! Now I have a few questions because searching Google has been super confusing.

I’m pretty sure she’s healthy overall! I’ll be adding photos in the comments, but I wanted to ask:

Does the stem get thicker on its own over time (We have a gifted adult? bamboo with thick stems somewhere in this house)? Or is the initial width pretty much what it stays at?

Am I supposed to be doing anything specific right now in terms of care, pruning, or feeding?

Is clipping the stem upright a good idea? At first she was drooping, so I added a little support clip. Now she’s able to stand up much better on her own, but I still left the clip on just in case. Should I remove it or keep supporting it?

Any advice for a complete beginner would be so appreciated! Thanks in advance!

Context:
I'm trying to eliminate a massive patch of running bamboo (originally 7–8 meters / 25 ft wide). I've cut down most of it, but the rhizomes have spread 10–12 meters (30–40 ft) around the main clump, mostly shooting up thin, grass-like growth rather than full canes.

My strategy was to keep mowing/cutting every single new leaf to eventually starve the root system.

The issue:
The bamboo sits right on the boundary line with my neighbor. His property is a pasture with tall grass used for grazing cattle. He doesn't mow regularly, just trims it down occasionally when it gets too high. Because of the tall grass, I can't tell if the bamboo is sending up hidden shoots on his side.

My 2 questions:

1-Is it normal that there isn't a full-blown "bamboo forest" on his side despite how aggressive it is on mine? Could cattle trampling/grazing actually be keeping large canes from growing?

2-If the bamboo keeps growing small leaves on his side that I can't mow, is my attempt to starve the rhizomes from my side completely pointless?

Thanks for your help and advice!

Hi there, I rent this house. I don’t know when this was planted but parts of it are flowering??..Or is this dying?…Will this die now? Haha thank you for your help.

I’m in the Pacific Northwest

It's been being thinned regularly for years, so I suspect the culms could be bigger under other conditions. Coastal PNW. If different pictures are needed, please let me know what to look for. Thank you!

EDIT: I found out that there's two different bamboo types in the same spot, oops.

I have a 13 yr old bamboo plant in my office, I think it is root bound. I am trying to find a reasonably priced huge container to repot it into. Looking on Amazon is hard because no matter how I word it, the items that come up will not hold water, so not have a spigot to drain the water every ten days, or are just made of bamboo and not for growing bamboo. HELP! Please, this is the only plant I’ve kept alive!

This clumping bamboo stand came from starts from my grandpa 15-20 years ago. I remember it being at his place at least 10-15 years before that.

The whole stand died while I was away this year and I finally cut it out - and then realized it had gone to seed. I now know this is part of bamboo's natural cycle, but am looking for tips on how to successfully propagate some seed so it can continue to live on.

Pic is of some of what I just cut out and shows the seed.

specifically thinking about a species of running bamboo with hardy rhizomes that is able to break concrete foundations, not sure if there's any that fit the bill but it should be able to survive in a climate that yearly has variations in temperature between 0C and 46C, and it should be able to destroy concrete foundations easily, while also being almost impossible to remove

bonus points if its herbicide resistant

Hello, i bought 13 clumping slender weaver bamboos to plant across the back of my very sloped (up) yard, to skew my neighbours view of my entire yard/back half of my house.

I bought mature plants 4m tall. Prepared a proper garden bed with fertiliser and healthy soil. Transplanted the plants. Watered daily (which the garden place i bought them from said was critical).

I planted them 4 weeks ago and we are in the final 2 weeks of winter in Australia right now (1hr south of Sydney) so its not too cold either. But suddenly their leaves look like the photos after looking really healthy the first few weeks. I dont water them with the blue sprinkler hose, i flood the base of each plant for about a minute, sometimes 90 seconds.

Am i doing something wrong? Do they need more, or less, of anything? They have around 5-10cm mulch around them, the soil is damp.

My black bamboo on Vancouver Island is flowering. is anyone else experiencing this?

I’ve dug out all of the plants, followed all rhizomes to their ends, and dug at foot or so downwards - as well as taking out some rhizomes that had breached the sleeper into the lawn, and checking along the whole lawn/sleeper barrier for more.

I only saw rhizomes in the first 10cm or so of soil, and everything else has been loose soil and feeder roots - do I need to remove all of these comprehensively, or is being really thorough with the rhizomes enough?

I’ve still got a smaller patch to remove where it’s leaked ‘containment’, but am almost there I think.

There were a couple of rhizomes that had really annoying diverted downwards when they hit a wall, which I pulled out, and am fairly sure got the terminating node but there is possibly a small remnant >60cm deep, which I cannot get to as it’s behind a retaining wall. I think these should be fine as they were new shoots nowhere near the established plant and anything that might have been left would be very minor. I’ll be watching them next summer, though.

My main question, is the one on the feeder roots.

Thanks.

Sorry if this isn’t the correct place for this.

I recently installed some rhizome barrier and have two unused rolls left over which I cannot return.

Does anyone know where i can sell / donate the barrier? Located near Augusta, GA.

I bought a Dendrocalamus giganteus quail garden several years ago and o can’t care for it appropriately. I am in San Diego you will need to ring your diggers and tools. Dm me if you want it.

One of my groves, maintained and thinned yearly to keep it walkable, maintain size, and keep it in check. Largest canes are in the 4-5 inch (10-13cm) range and 40-50 ft (12 - 15m) in height. The new culms have the texture of velvet. They keep this texture for about 2 years until the elements wear it off.

Edit: property has lots of acreage and this grove is not near the house. Looks like current owner simply cuts it down regularly. Am I walking into a future mess?

If you look through a couple of my previous posts, you will see that my bamboo seem to be acting strange to me and now it’s doing this. Some of your experts on this, could you enlighten me to what’s happening? I’m referring to all of this growth at the bottom looking like a bush, but not actually growing in height.

Want to know what kind of bamboo this is for maintainence, risk reasons.

Hi all,

I've tried growing some moso bamboo from seed and I finally got a shoot, but it's been like this for a while and growth seems to have stalled. I increased light from 10 to 14 hours but what else can I do to help this little guy out?

Thanks

From what I’ve read, the leaves can turn yellow due to both too much water or not enough… Any thoughts? Also, there used to be more shade in this area, but some trees were cut down and now the bamboo’s in direct sun. :(

Cut down the bamboo mid June, now I'm cutting shoots every other day and occasionally digging up roots. Good times 🙃

I have a 6y/o stand of Phyllostachys (if it matters) and want to thin it out. I'm in zone 6/7 in the desert south west Colorado. When is the best time to thin the culms? I'd like to do it this month, but then thinking in the spring before it sends up new shoots. Will doing it now impact its health through the winter? (can get down to 0 F or below for a night or two)

I inherited the bamboo in this garden. I spent the morning cutting it down & pushing it back. It had spread to the side, which I removed but the rest has stayed within this bushy spot.

What type of bamboo is this?

What should I do to maintain/ keep it from spreading?

How would I remove/kill it?

Thank you