My garden is infested with bamboo. The stuff grows at an incredible rate, as much as a foot a day. I've been spraying it with Roundup but that isn't working. The leaves that have been sprayed turn brown but it's not stopping new plants from springing up. Does anyone have any ideas? Can I get agent orange anywhere?
2-4-D
;-)
Seriously, you are probably going to have to take the effort to dig it all up.
Persistence will pay off b/c bamboo is one tough customer. It won/t go away with a single treatment, so keep at it, General.
A friend of ours got rid of a bad infestation by cutting the plants near the ground and then putting Roundup down in them. I think he got a syringe to inject the Roundup. May take a while but keep at it.
I would rototill to expose the roots, remove those, then cover the area with black plastic and let them die of lack of water and sun and too much heat. Of course, the other answer is to smother them in kudzu....
It won't happen. The part right under the plastic may (or may not) die, some will very probably survive and pop up, maybe right through the plastic. I am not kidding, I have seen it pop up through asphalt in my neighbour's yard - he was not impressed. The rest that you cannot see will pop up where ever it can. Or you will kill your whole garden with the plastic and the bamboo will survive.
The only way that I have done it is to trace each and every root from its shoots and physically pull it up. This took months as every time I thought I had it beaten a new bit came up.
The moral of the story is: be careful what you plant, it might grow quite well.
David
Will Roundup kill the roots or is pulling the stuff out the only solution? I've been spraying every few days. I pull a few of them but mostly I've just sprayed because I want the Roundup to travel through the plants and into the roots. Am I wasting my time with the Roundup?
If you dig up all the roots then what happens? My neighbor has a patch that is headed into my yard. I keep the shoots broken off but I know I have roots underground.
The way I understand how Roundup works is it/s absorbed through the leaves and travels to the roots.
I use Roundup in the spring to control Sweet Gum seedlings on my lot. Roundup is fast acting on weeds, but it takes a few weeks before I see the leaves turn brown on the young trees.
That's precisely the advice I hear from the experts. But they emphasise that cutting-and-poisoning the canes is a TWO person job. You have only a second or two between severing the stem and applying the poison to the cut surface--hardly enough time to put down the pruners and pick up a brush to apply the Roundup. Within that two second period the plant sucks down the poison, after that it begins to seal the wound. The best season to apply poison is spring or summer when plant growth is most vigorous. I've even heard recommendations that you water and fertilise the bamboo first, to get it growing vigorously before later applying the Roundup.
It seems clear that you need Roundup and persistence, in equal amounts.
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