Forum

Replies

• 

  Stuart Land-Scape.co.uk July 21, 2013 at 9:55am

  if she wants it cheap, then it's repeated applications of herbicide until the stuff pegs out, or you might look at sodium chlorate if affecting other plants or run off is not going to be a problem.

  it looks more of a small digger and skip job - doing it by hand would be pretty labour intensive and you're right about the patio as well.

  it might even be cheaper to trench along the clump, put in a root barrier and then concentrate on spraying the patio.
• 

  Sue/Bayleaf's Traditional July 21, 2013 at 10:52am

  Hi Darren, We had a similar problem last year only access was better, the runners had gone under a playground at a school and were lifting up the tarmac.
  We killed most of it by cutting off the Bamboo to 4" from the ground and painting on neat stump killer, you have 30 seconds (after cutting) to get the weed killer on to each shoot, time consuming but it worked. That killed the clump but not the runners. The runners had to be dug out with a mechanical digger and the playground cut and re-tarmaced.
  Looking at the picture you might get away with lifting the first 4 courses of slabs to get the runners out, they can go down about 2' from the surface.
  You have to make sure you get every bit of runner out otherwise it will grow back!
  This unfortunately needs to be done in the summer for the stump killer to work, but you could leave the digging out until winter.
  I see this planted all over the place, people just don't realise what they're planting I think there should be a warning on this type of Bamboo.

  Sue
• 

  Jim McCarthy July 21, 2013 at 11:15am

  This is really helpful advice. I have heard that you can use vinegar on the cut shoots, and also that it gets sucked into the roots if you do it within 15 to 30 seconds. I have found digging the whole thing out is the best if most painstaking method.

  Jim
  
  Sue/Bayleaf's Traditional said:

  Hi Darren, We had a similar problem last year only access was better, the runners had gone under a playground at a school and were lifting up the tarmac.
  We killed most of it by cutting off the Bamboo to 4" from the ground and painting on neat stump killer, you have 30 seconds (after cutting) to get the weed killer on to each shoot, time consuming but it worked. That killed the clump but not the runners. The runners had to be dug out with a mechanical digger and the playground cut and re-tarmaced.
  Looking at the picture you might get away with lifting the first 4 courses of slabs to get the runners out, they can go down about 2' from the surface.
  You have to make sure you get every bit of runner out otherwise it will grow back!
  This unfortunately needs to be done in the summer for the stump killer to work, but you could leave the digging out until winter.
  I see this planted all over the place, people just don't realise what they're planting I think there should be a warning on this type of Bamboo.

  Sue
• 

  Sue/Bayleaf's Traditional July 21, 2013 at 11:29am

  I agree with you Jim, digging it out is the best way although time consuming, but the Bamboo we killed last year was about 4' square and really deep the runners were spreading out about 20' in all directions. with another one half the size, so we wanted to kill it to halt it in it's tracks
  I don't know about vinegar, I would be interested to know if it workd it would save a huge amount on cost. But you're right about the sucking down into the roots, you have to be quick. We had one person cutting and the other painting with a brush quite a laugh!
  What is the otherside of the Bamboo, because tose runners will be going out that way as well?
  Sue
  
  Jim McCarthy said:

  This is really helpful advice. I have heard that you can use vinegar on the cut shoots, and also that it gets sucked into the roots if you do it within 15 to 30 seconds. I have found digging the whole thing out is the best if most painstaking method.

  Jim
  
  Sue/Bayleaf's Traditional said:

  Hi Darren, We had a similar problem last year only access was better, the runners had gone under a playground at a school and were lifting up the tarmac.
  We killed most of it by cutting off the Bamboo to 4" from the ground and painting on neat stump killer, you have 30 seconds (after cutting) to get the weed killer on to each shoot, time consuming but it worked. That killed the clump but not the runners. The runners had to be dug out with a mechanical digger and the playground cut and re-tarmaced.
  Looking at the picture you might get away with lifting the first 4 courses of slabs to get the runners out, they can go down about 2' from the surface.
  You have to make sure you get every bit of runner out otherwise it will grow back!
  This unfortunately needs to be done in the summer for the stump killer to work, but you could leave the digging out until winter.
  I see this planted all over the place, people just don't realise what they're planting I think there should be a warning on this type of Bamboo.

  Sue