Bamboo take over

I bought a Phyllostachis aurea about three years ago, as I had an area that I wanted to hide. It was quite a large area and in my innocence I thought it would be contained. However three years down the line and it is doing a take over bid. I have found shoots at least 4 feet from the parent and as I have a pond about 8 feet from the area I thought it was time to say goodbye to it. First I gave it a haircut and then been dosing it every few days with round up for the past three weeks which doesn't seem to be having much effect. Any suggestions!!

 

I think the only way to defeat bamboo is to dig it out :(

 

Not sure about bamboo s o k, but for roundup to work you need a large leaf area, so cutting it back would have reduced the effect of the weed killer.
Also it takes a good two or three weeks to show much effect.

 

Hi seeker of knowledge,

Maybe you need me to visit your garden as in one of my posts I mentioned that i managed to kill bamboo with no effort on my part at all :D

Personally I found that dog pee probably helped the process :D

My mate who is a gardener donated the bamboo to me for much the same reason as you had yours, i asked her about your problem and she said in the absence of dog pee the only thing you can do is to dig it up which is quite a difficult job. Alternatively she said there are weed killer products available that you can just paint on one leaf (in the case of bamboo on a part of the cane), this will eventually kill the whole plant but you will not be advised to plant anything in it's place for a while :(

I now have black bamboo and find it isn't such a prolific grower but perhaps that just my "efforts" to love it

I am happy to say that I now do not kill anywhere near as much as i used to and the garden is looking quite nice :D

Good luck

 

Thanks everyone for your useful suggestions - I started to dig it out today, at least the long underground shoots that were heading toward my pond. I think if I can contain it from my pond I will carry on with the round up, or the weedkiller that accident algardener suggested painting on, unfortunately you didn't supply the name.

 

Hi seeker,

Will pop 'round and ask her this evening, but don't forget you won't be able to plant there for a good while..............

 

I wish i was closer to you Seeker, i would have dug it out for you and put it in my garden as i have wanted some Bamboo for ages.

 

A very nice plant in the right situation but now you know it needs restricting. Try trenching around the plant down to about 300mm deep and inserting plastic sheet then back fill. bamboo will not get past it then. Or get a large diameter clay pot and sink that in the ground and plant in the pot for a local specimin that cannot spread.

I made the mistake of planting one in a bell pot for the pation. When the time came for re potting I couldnt get the damn thing out, I had to smash the pot. there were hoops of woody shoots going round and round!

 

Thank you vegman for your suggestion, but I have starting to dig it out and at the rate I am going will still be at it come the spring. However I have got cuttings which I have put into pots and will still have the pleasure of the plant and not the pain. Do you know if it has a tap root? because it seems pretty immovable at present, but I am digging a trench round it hoping to be able to prise it up eventually.