Homeowner Fights Bamboo With A Weed Whacker, A Ditch Witch, Hauled Away Dirt And A Drainage Ditch Moat, Then Digs A Hole And Finds A Root In The Middle Of The Yard

“Every American agrees that bamboo is the number one problem that faces our country today.” So begins a very funny war report from @theforgehouse, where a homeowner has been fighting bamboo for years and the bamboo is winning.

A dense stand of tall green bamboo stalks.

The caption sums it up: every year they think they are finally getting ahead of it, and every year the bamboo has other plans.

Here is how the battle has gone so far, one escalation at a time.

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It Started With A Weed Whacker And Ended Up With A Ditch Witch

At first, he says, he just used a weed whacker to cut the bamboo down. Then he stepped it up.

He got an enormous Ditch Witch, a trenching machine, to cut all of the roots, thinking that surely this would kill the plants. “It did not,” he says. “It just made them stronger.”

Anyone who has fought a stubborn plant knows that sinking feeling. Cutting did not end the problem. It fed it.

He Hired A Real Man With A Real Machine To Haul Away The Dirt

Time to really step in, he says. He hired a real man with a real machine to physically take away all of the dirt that contained bamboo seeds.

That dirt, he jokes, got dumped at the house of one of his enemies. “You know who you are,” he says. “You ask for it.”

The move had a side benefit. It cleared out a ton of unusable land and turned it into a nice flat space.

Everyone Knows Bamboo Is Afraid Of Ditches, So He Dug A Bamboo Moat

With the scourge gone, or so he thought, he moved to defense. “Everyone knows that bamboo is afraid of ditches,” he says.

They dug a big drainage ditch all the way down the back end of the property, which he calls basically a bamboo moat. Come spring, he says, he could not have been happier.

That is, until the twist arrived.

A Hole In The Middle Of The Yard Revealed A Bamboo Root Behind Enemy Lines

He dug a hole in the middle of his yard and found a bamboo root. “That’s right,” he says. A piece of bamboo had snuck across enemy lines and was trying to grow right in the middle of the yard.

“The battle’s not over yet,” he adds. His next idea? “Maybe this time I’ll try fire. Stay tuned.”

In the caption he asks followers whether fire is the next reasonable solution. For the record, fire is not a good answer, and we will get to better ideas below.

Why Bamboo Is So Hard To Beat

Bamboo is a type of grass, and many varieties spread underground through stems called rhizomes. These rhizomes send up new shoots some distance from the parent plant, which is how a small patch can turn into a yard-wide invasion.

The kind that spreads this way is often called running bamboo. Clumping bamboo grows in a tighter mass and is generally much easier to keep in place.

Cutting the plant to the ground does not remove the rhizomes, and chopping them into pieces can encourage new growth. That helps explain why the trenching machine in this story did not solve the problem.

What Gardeners Say Actually Works Against Running Bamboo

There is no magic fix, but several methods are widely recommended by gardening experts and university extension offices. Persistence matters more than any single tool.

Cut new shoots repeatedly. Mowing or cutting shoots as they come up over a growing season or two drains the rhizomes’ stored energy.
Dig out rhizomes. Removing as much of the underground network as you can reduces what is left to regrow.
Install a rhizome barrier. A thick barrier set deep in the ground, with its top edge just above the soil, can slow spread when installed properly.
Use herbicide carefully. If you choose this route, follow the label and local rules, and consider asking your county extension office for guidance.
Dispose of material responsibly. Hauled-away dirt and cuttings can carry rhizomes, so do not dump them where they can take root.

One more tip for anyone planning a dig: wear gloves and sturdy boots, and bag any rhizome pieces you pull up. Leaving even small chunks on bare soil, or tossing them on a compost pile, gives the plant a fresh chance to take hold somewhere new.

Skip The Fire Idea

Burning is a joke in this video, and it should stay one. Open burning can be dangerous and is restricted or banned in many areas, and bamboo can resprout from rhizomes that survive underground.

Instead, check with your local extension office, which can often tell you which bamboo species are common in your area and what methods work in your soil and climate.

Also check before you plant. If you love the look of bamboo, a clumping variety in a container or a well-built barrier can give you the privacy screen without the war.

The battle at the Forge House is far from over, and you can follow the next round on @theforgehouse. Until then, anyone with a bamboo problem can take comfort in knowing they are not fighting alone.

Willow and Hearth