FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Our new house came with a grove of invasive bamboo. There is no way to eradicate it. The best I can do is to keep it from swallowing the entire property. I cut some to dry and use around the property. A few of them are 3 inches across and 40 feet long.

I've actually contacted Zoo Atlanta to see if they wanted to harvest it for the pandas. This stuff has such a massive underground root system that I don't think anything short of a nuclear strike will kill it. The patch is so big that I don't think I could get it all cut and poisoned before it started growing back again. I just keep cutting it back to keep it in some sort of boundary.

I was also going to suggest renting a family of . Like Chef, my other suggestion was concentrated RoundUp. Cut a living cane leaving around a foot remaining above the ground. Fill half way with concentrated RoundUp. Cover the cut end with plastic wrap or a plastic bag and "seal" with a rubber band or zip tie. (Keeps the cut end from callousing over, the liquid from evaporating, and helps prevent animals drinking it.) You may need to repeat the process with numerous canes for such a large stand.

Hmm, you might try renting some goats, too. Don't know if they'd eat bamboo but they seem to eat pretty much anything.

A good stand of bamboo will take a *serious* root rake. And then some repetitive doses of stuff I wouldn’t really want around my house. Definitely contain it as it will crowd you out in only a few years. I’ve got a patch I’d gladly swap for yours.

sans, has your bamboo all been cut at once?

It is likely the non-invasive clumping kind. There are types of bamboo that aren't as hard to kill as the stuff I've got.