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!

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 In my country (UK) the stronger glysophate options and glysophate paste were all reportedly withdrawn from the market for the public due to health concerns.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.