PLEASE HELP! How to get rid of bamboo

[EEN]

Hello- I am contemplating buying the house I am now renting. I love the house but there is a very long stand of bamboo that was planted in the 80s. It is invading the neighbors property as well as advancing towards both our septic tanks. It is extremely tall and landscapers have mentioned it being the "real" Japanese bamboo- the worst, most invasive and most difficult to get rid of. One landscaper said it would require cutting all the stalks all the way down and then pouring herbicide into the stalks and repeatedly doing this for many years to come. He said that would cost 29k. The second landscaper said that method would not work and that he would have to dig something resembling "a huge swimming pool" 20 feet wide, 4 feet deep from the beginning to the end of the stand and that would cost at least 40k. We have two more people coming. Just wanted to know if anyone here actually knows what works and what doesn't, and any advice.
Many thanks!

[needmore]

Could it be scraped with a bulldozer? That would not take long, probably not be terribly expensive and would go a major way toward control, you'd need to have all the debris removed as well. Anything not scraped out would need to be dealt with in other ways, but there are other ways. I've killed off several bamboo groves by hand so it can be done if you know how, it sounds like yours needs mechanical assistance. I'd rather hire a dozer than hand cut them.

[mshaffer]

For that much money you could buy a really nice tractor and just keep mowing it until it gives up.

[EEN]

I know, the amount of money is completely ridiculous. I think they are quoting that much b/c they really don't want to actually do it. The "scraping" idea is what the 40k would be, I think. I was hoping some bamboo experts here could tell me how I could do this possibly myself with my husband, or at least a way which will actually be successful if we hire someone.

[wolfedg]

I'm no expert on this stuff, but no plant is invincible.
Eliminate its source of photosynthesis (leaves) and eventually the plant will exhaust its energy reserves and wither.
There are a number of ways to do this.
In any case I would start by cutting every culm to the ground.
From there you could go the expensive route and dig out all the rhizomes, but it would probably be a lot easier to use other methods especially considering you are still going to have to do some degree of the below anyway.
You could cover the freshly cut culms with black plastic and just keep an eye around the perimeter for new shoots/foliage that escapes for about a year.
You could continually mow the site every week or so for about a year.
You could apply herbicide to the freshly cut culms and every new leaf that decides to pop up.
In order for any of these to succeed though, you MUST not allow any leaves to survive anywhere on the grove.

[needmore]

Bulldozing cost $400 - $500 per day in most areas and I can't imagine that it would take very long so $40k seems unreal.

wolfedg sums it up well. The rhizomes in the ground can not live long-term w/o having something above ground photosynthesizing for them. So the task very simply put it to get rid of the above ground and don't let the below ground sustain new growth above ground. It will try. Cutting/scraping everything down, waiting for the new flush to come up, mowing it down - repeat several times as needed.

I don't think herbicide will help much and will surely toxify the ground.

[T9D]

I'm going to tell you an easy and cheap way to get rid of it. Go down to your local farm store. They will have fertilizer that is the strongest you can buy. It's like 40-0-0 or something. It's urea. It's pure white and comes in just some generic clear bag. I think it's like $20 for a huge bag of it. Buy a lot of bags. Go dump that all over the entire area of bamboo. Then water it down so it sinks into the soil. Do this on a hot day, it will work better. It will totally dry out and kill any plant. It will look like a fire came through. The roots and everything will be dead. But if anything comes up next year it will be a very small amount, and do it one more time. Make sure you get enough though because if you don't you'll just be fertilizing it and make it worse ;p

Eventually after a season or two of rain it will get absorbed and the land will be back to normal. The only problem is if you have any trees or anything you want to keep it will kill those too if they are to close.

I did this a few times with an invasive tree called "tree of heaven". It's the most horrid spreading tree you can imagine. No one else seems to have any luck with eradicating them. And it notoriously comes back and spreads even worse if you cut it down. But I wiped out a whole forest of them in my yard. Now if only the neighbor would do the same.

Or just cut the tops to the ground and keep mowing it for a few years. That will eventually do it too.

[johnw]

re: urea

Likely not a good idea if you or your neighbours are on well water. The airports in most of Canada use it to mmelt ice on runways and some contain the runoff into resevoir tanks I'm told.

john

[dependable]

Can you post pictures of what you have? Am near you and would be able to give better advice if I could see what you're dealing with.

[EEN]

Thank you everyone for taking the time to respond and offer suggestions. Yes, I will try and post images tomorrow.

[Tarzanus]

I did hear, however, that you can cut everything above ground, fertilize it with high nitrogen fertilizer to promote new growth. When it starts shooting again and again, you just remove the shoots and mow the emerging survival shoots and branches. By severing any visible rhizome into smaller sections, you further decrease its chance of survival and shorten the time to its demise.

[cole]

Well, it sounds like the bamboo has put you in a really good position as the buyer.

[Tarzanus]

Cole +1

[vindiesel.zmaj]

Hi. Don't know how much, and how big the bamboo is, but the sum for removing it you mention is just crazy.

It's not so hard killing any bamboo stand. You can just cut all culms as close as possible to the ground(so the stumps are leveled with soil level, because it's much easier to walk over it), and then, bamboo will bounce back till the end of growing season. As soon as the new shoots are 10 inches tall, you just kick them over, because they are very weak and fragile in that stage. You will have to do that till winter, and probably next year, and after that, bamboo will just die. It will spend all nutrients from roots and rhizomes, and it will just die. No herbicide or fertilizer is needed. if some leveling is needed after, bulldozer will take care of it.

And you can probably sell all culm you cut in the initial cutting, and probably get some decent money from it, cause if it's Madake bamboo, it's poles are of excellent quality and they always find their buyer.

Can't wait to see pics of that bamboo stand.

[EEN]

OK-here it is. Sorry it's hard to see it well mixed into the other trees. The landscapers all seem to be calling it "Japanese tree variety". Perhaps you all know more specifics. I think part of the exorbitant cost has to do with permits from a permit-crazy town for removal to a proper disposal area plus replanting required by the town (2x what is removed) and that we are directly on a pond (extra permits). I have a feeling the home-owner wants this to be someone else's problem.
Thanks again!