Bamboo problem-help!

shoppingnoodles

Hi there.

I have bamboo in my front garden, next to a tarmac drive. The bamboo is tunnelling under the tarmac and sprouting up in various places, which is going to wreck the drive. Does anyone know how I can stop it without having to dig up all the bamboo to get rid of it?

Thanks in advance and happy Easter.

alanobrien

Unfortunately this is the nature of the plant.

If you want to keep it, i would dig it out, chop the roots pot it into a large bin to contain it and bury that in the ground. Then watch out for roots wandering out sideways at ground level and cut them out.

They are nice plants but some varieties can take over the whole garden if you dont contain them.

phoebe03cat

Out of interest (and because I'm worried) what sort is it please?:eek:

malamala

We love to have bamboo plants as a border in our back garden but we are worried about their aggressivness.

Is it possible to grow them in buckets and sinked them closely in the ground?

Strepsy

I think I've heard that they're quite easy to control when you understand the nature of them and that one way to control them is to have a ditch around or alongside the plant(s). The runners that shoot off sideways under the ground are only actually a few inches down, I think, so if you see one start growing in the ditch space you can just cut it straight off before it has chance to root.

I have one as my little piece of House of Flying Daggers in the garden. lol. Mine's only small right now though. I don't know what you'd do with a huge one that's already causing problems. Sink a concrete base panel in next to the tarmac to act as a sunken boundary?

floyd

malamala wrote: »

Is it possible to grow them in buckets and sinked them closely in the ground?

We have 3 large Phyllostachys bissetii that we planted in cold water loft tanks that had been sunk into the ground with about 2 inches showing above ground level.

We have no problems with runners as you can spot them and chop them off straight away. This variety doesn't spread too wildly anyway but better to be safe the only downside is, that they need more water as they are effectively container plants but ours seem to thrive.

We got ours from Mulu who were very helpful in advising which type are good for beginners, cold areas, shady spots etc etc

floyd

In answer to the OP, the only way to make sure it doesn't trash your driveway is to dig up the parent plant and put it in a pot or encase in high grade rubber barrier (bamboo specialists sell this, don't buy any old membrane as the runners can get through some of the lower grade ones) then put a systemic weed killer on the leaves of any shooters that appear.

This should work as any runners will be killed but you will still have the parent plant

shoppingnoodles

Thanks to everyone for the advice. I've gone down the weed killer route so far, but I think that the channel round the bamboo may be my next step.

In answer to phoebe03, I'm afraid that I don't know what type of bamboo it is. I moved in last year and it was already here. My neighbour, who knew the previous owners, said that they had planted it all round the front garden as we are on a busy road. The fast growing bamboo made a tall barrier to people looking through the windows. My nephew has recently bought a plant from a bamboo specialist, who said that there are varieties that don't do the tunnelling thing, so if you are thinking about planting bamboo, then buy these.

I just wish that the original owners that planted the flipping stuff had know this!!

Lord_Gardener

I regularly have to 'remove' bamboo - a combination of digging and weed killing - this usually takes some time and repeated applications if the plant is well spread!!!

Some advice from the RHS

http://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profiles1005/bamboocontrol.asp