Every few years I go into that bed and rip out as much root as I can manage. I originally planted it as a screen from the road. About eight or nine years ago, we re-graded the drive, added a parking area and pushed up the excess soil to create a berm. We brought in some topsoil mix to cover the clay subsoil and put in a railroad tie retaining wall on the parking area side. In the course of this work, the clay subsoil was mounded up against the clump of bamboo. Well, in about five years, the bamboo had worked its way up to the top of the berm and out the bottom of the retaining wall into the gravel of the parking area. The wall is about three feet (1m) high at this point! Now, it is traveling north around the sides into another planting area and has infiltrated most of the berm.
As much as I fight with it, I wouldn't be without it. Bamboo is a graceful plant, always rustling in the breeze and I haven't bought a bamboo plant stake for years. I harvest some of mine every year; cut off the branches while they're still green and lay them out flat on this concrete pad we've got until they dry. I've used them for all sorts of emergency garden projects as well as plant stakes of all sizes. Only mature culms can be cut; the immature ones don't harden and just disintegrate.
There is a lot of very good information about bamboo on the web. Follow these links and you'll find just about everything you ever wanted or needed to know...plus a lot of photographs so you can see what these fascinating plants look like as well as nurseries where you can buy them online and off-line.
More ornamental grasses for shade next time. See ya' later
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A massive list of bamboo names and synonyms compiled by Wim Masman, Netherlands will help you sort out the confusion of genera and species.
The American Bamboo Society World Wide Web Page is the place to begin your acquaintance with bamboo. It's an excellent site with just about all the information you need to get started with bamboo, including a list of the hardiest species. There are links to event calendars for various chapters and links for contacting chapters. There are links to the European Bamboo Society and Australian Bamboo Network.
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