Sunday, April 26, 2009

Bamboo

We have a lot of bamboo in our yard. The landscaper was careful to put all of the bamboo in rhizome containers because bamboo is known for spreading like a weed. A few clumps of bamboo are buried in the ground, but most are in black plastic, 10 gallon buckets lined with a plastic mesh. These buckets just sit on the ground around the yard, screening us from the neighbors.

With spring around us, I had noticed some large sprouts in the buried bamboo clumps. They grow really fast! I then noticed some sprouts well outside the buried rhizome containers. In fact, these sprouts were close to one of the black plastic buckets. Then I saw another sprout near another bucket.

I tried to pick up one of the buckets, but it had grown roots. The bamboo had broken through the plastic liner and snuck out the four drainage holes in the bucket. I grabbed my hand clippers and tried to snip the roots. Too thick. I went back into the garage and pulled out the three foot lopper. After loosening it up a bit, I gave a good yank on the bucket and it came free. Here are two of the buckets:



I spent the next few hours digging around for all of the roots. Here is one rhizome trying to make dash under the fence into the neighbor's yard.


It turns out, all of the buckets in the yard had roots growing out of them. Only three were really bad. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about it. In the short term, I'm going to lift the buckets weekly to break any new roots escaping from the buckets. In the long term, I could buy a container and put the bucket in that, but I'm concerned about the lack of drainage. Any thoughts?

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