Bamboo Root Removal (BRR)

[herr_oberst]

I've been asked to help remove bamboo roots from a friends backyard. First thought is a ditch witch, the idea is to dig a trench in a criss-cross pattern over the rooted area, then break the soil further using the trencher, then glean the soil by hand.

Has anyone ever done this? Any other ideas or thoughts regarding tenacious root removal?

[Eric Hahl]

I read "Rambo Boot Removal". Had to re read. Sorry, no help for the bamboo removal.

[Bugsinrugs]

Way back when I bought my first house I took on the task of removing the bamboo in the yard. Good thing I was young. One must get all the roots out. ALL THE ROOTS!! Any pieces left in the ground will result in more bamboo to dig up. It’s a hell job!

[bkreigsr]

What if you spray the foliage with something like Round Up?
Might take a couple of years to be 100% eradicated, but easier than digging?
It is just a grass - right ?

[herr_oberst]

Originally Posted by bkreigsr

It is just a grass - right ?

[Baz]

Are there any plants still alive and/or sticking up out of the ground?

If not, how long ago were the top parts removed and how was it done?

How much removal does your friend want? What is his/her goal there? How far down we talkin'?

Trying to re-plant with something else?

Just trying to re-grade the yard and old roots are getting in the way?

Do you know what species the old bamboo was?

How big an area we talking?

Can you get a medium size excavator in there - because that would be the machine to do it.

[herr_oberst]

Originally Posted by Baz

Are ......snip......... it.

Excellent questions. I'll get back to you.

[vash]

the bamboo has been cut off? just the tiny cut ends coming out of the ground?

I am profoundly intimate with this hell. the secret was renting an electric jackhammer and spade bit. I bet $ a ditch witch will not cut the ryzhomes. however that is spelled.

[Superman]

I feel sorry for you, herr_oberst. I think you live nearby, and I assume you know there are things we do NOT plant outside of pots. Mint. Arugula. Pampas Grass. Bamboo. Not necessarily in that order.

[Superman]

Track hoe with a 1-yard bucket, and some dump trucks to haul it away and bring in the new dirt.

[Tobra]

Does your friend have access to nuclear weapons?

[herr_oberst]

Originally Posted by vash

the bamboo has been cut off? just the tiny cut ends coming out of the ground?

I am profoundly intimate with this hell. the secret was renting an electric jackhammer and spade bit. I bet $ a ditch witch will not cut the ryzhomes. however that is spelled.

Excellent idea!

[Bill Douglas]

I think you need to kill the stuff first. A garden centre will sell you something strong and effective.

If it's not killed off and just chopped back (including your best efforts at root removal), you'll get a guaranteed bumper crop of it next year.

[vash]

Originally Posted by Superman

I feel sorry for you, herr_oberst. I think you live nearby, and I assume you know there are things we do NOT plant outside of pots. Mint. Arugula. Pampas Grass. Bamboo. Not necessarily in that order.

I'll add: any IVY!

[SCadaddle]

Just a few weeks ago my friend down at the garden center sold me a 16 oz. bottle of Ferti-lome Brush Killer Stump Killer. Directions say mix it 4-8 oz. per gallon in a sprayer and give it 1-6 weeks to do its job. 5 oz. did the job in about 10 days on all the stuff I sprayed with it---didn't have any bamboo but I did have a lot of poison ivy, poison oak and various small random hardwood trees sprouting up. I've since called my friend to ask him if this stuff actually kills the roots or am I going to have to spray it all over again after cutting the dead stuff out. He said it kills the roots and everything. If it's dead the roots are dead and that one aint coming back.

Label states "Active Ingredients: Triclopyr (3,5,6-trichloro-2-Pyridinyloxyacetica acid), as the Triethylamine salt.....8.8%
Other Ingredients...........91.2%
Total........................100%"

It's some bad stuff.

[Bill Douglas]

Once it looks dead, leave it dead for sometime so it actually kills the roots as well. Yep, it sounds like the right stuff to kill it off.

[herr_oberst]

Thank you, everyone, for posting on this.
I hate out- of-control bamboo, but I like my friend. Anything to reconcile the two is appreciated.

[vash]

Originally Posted by Bill Douglas

I think you need to kill the stuff first. A garden centre will sell you something strong and effective.

If it's not killed off and just chopped back (including your best efforts at root removal), you'll get a guaranteed bumper crop of it next year.

my experience is opposite. once a bamboo root dies and dries, it hardens like iron. a green root (its a rhizome actually) is more easily to chop thru. they make a tool that is like a digging bar with a sharpened spade end. it has a heavy slide hammer over the shaft and you use it to blast thru the rhizomes, and the bar is long enough to leverage it out. I'm unhealthy mentally and border on OCD. which is a GOOD THING battling bamboo. have the landowner forget any ideas of replanting that area for a year, easy. dig dig, chop, pry. and dig dig, cuss. BEST you can. then settle in for the long haul. the BEST thing about bamboo is it fights for survival. it will shoot up baby shoots as soon as possible. this allows you to walk the area with a digging bar and pulling up rhizomes that you missed. a chunk the size of a lemon will send out a shoot.

killing bamboo is kinda easy. cut the think close to the ground, and spray the blunt end with a spray bottle full of high octane roundup. save this info for that piece that is growing under some area you can't dig out. like a fence post foundation.

I talked to a pro bamboo gardener, and he said he uses a chainsaw with a carbide chain. I think it would still dull out when you plunge it into the earth to cut a rhizome.

and there is something very satisfying about cutting a rhizome, and pulling it up and you kinda zippering out a 10 foot section. will you need to go into a neighbor's yard?

[Superman]

Originally Posted by vash

...I talked to a pro bamboo gardener, and he said he uses a chainsaw ...

Once a moving chainsaw chain touches the dirt, the chain is ruined. I've done this before, and the chain becomes a digging chain instead of a cutting chain.

[vash]

Originally Posted by Superman

Once a moving chainsaw chain touches the dirt, the chain is ruined. I've done this before, and the chain becomes a digging chain instead of a cutting chain.

carbide chain? still? sounded like hooey to me.