It is a very nice plant that loves your garden so much that it shows it to you and takes place where there is, that is to say everywhere! And here I am sucking you on one side, on the other. I go see the girlfriends to get to know each other, even if it means stealing the light, the water, in short everything I need for my development. Intrusive? invasive? yes good, but that's how the bamboo, once installed shows that it is well ... installed!
If you have not taken care to set up an anti-rhizome barrier to contain it, the small exotic grass will colonize the space. Its rhizomes, powerful underground stems that bore, invite themselves where they are not called. You will have understood that the bamboo is fierce, enterprising and very egocentric; I am the best, the most beautiful and I show it!
So, let's say you decide to remove the bamboo from your garden that the previous owner (not you, of course!) put in place without a protective anti-rhizome barrier. How to proceed?
Severe pruning, that is to say at ground level, is essential.
To cut the bamboo you forget the hedge trimmer, the chainsaw as well as the backpack brushcutter. The saw doesn't work either. The best tool remains the pruning shears , also called a force pruner, because it has long handles and prevents you from…forcing. Well a little anyway. Also don't take a anvil force pruner . This tool crushes the stem on a large piece of metal and in the case of bamboo, the culm (this is what the bamboo stem is called, since it is a grass) does not cut. You really need a blade that rubs on a counter-blade, therefore, like a pruner does.
Be careful not to cut stones with it, the pruner blade does not like to have teeth. It's a chisel, not a saw.
Be sure to put the culms all in the same direction so that they can be transported easily.
It is not advisable to put the small side shoots in the compost, bamboo takes a very long time to transform. But the dry leaves that you find in the center of the bamboo clump can go to the composting area.
You have cut everything, sorted the stubble that you keep, evacuated the compostable, it remains to remove the rhizomes. And then you realize that you have already done the easiest...
The easiest way to deal with the stump is to cut off any excess as new culms come out. The shoots are tender and the secateurs or hedge shears are your friends. Culm removal deprives the plant of the ability to photosynthesis , it naturally runs out.
Harder physically, the pickaxe! in order to snatch what wants to come. Effective, but your vertebrae will remember it.
Finally chemistry. Forget glyphosate-based weedkiller, because it is prohibited and moreover not very effective. Forget hydrochloric acid, coarse salt, brush remover from the local farmer (which is also forbidden in gardens!), at the risk of polluting and destroying other plants and animals. In fact, forget the chemistry.
To improve your knowledge of bamboo, an excellent article giving advice on planting in window boxes and so-called "Clumpy bamboos. "
And if you go to the Gard, go visit the Bambouseraie d'Anduze, a magical place.
