Invasive Bamboo Removal

This bamboo was planted years ago and seemed to be fine for a while. But the thing about bamboo is even the clumping varieties can sometimes send out shoots. This is likely what happened here.

Without thick plastic borders meant to stop tree roots, poured concrete, or raised beds, bamboo can spread and become very nasty. Their runners can spread a long distance underground and send shoots upwards at random. These shoots can damage your lawn, decks, patios, walkways, and driveways.

In this case even though the main clump was a medium size, the runners were up to 30 ft away, one of which didn’t send any shoots upwards and was quietly spreading across the yard. Luckily, this was a minor case of spreading bamboo compared to some really bad cases. Also luckily, the neighbors didn’t get much spread at all. But you can see from the photos all the lines of runners that spread from the main clump, which was by the fence, and how far they went. The difficulty with removing invasives like bamboo is getting all of it. This is why I always recommend leaving the ground as is for at least a few months to easily detect if anything was missed.