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HAIL HYDRA! (mander.xyz)
submitted 8 months ago by to c/science_memes@mander.xyz
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[–] 4 points 8 months ago (3 children)

If you haven't had bamboo before, can also spread unpredictably and it's more difficult to get rid of than you expect. The varieties that tend to grow smaller are worse.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (2 children)

    Actually it spreads very predictably (in either circles or a collection of straight lines) and if you want to get rid of it, just cut it to the ground and stumpgrind out the rhizomes, which are the only part that can spread the plant (and for most species are found in the top 12 inches of soil). If someone tells you that you need to get out every tiny root, they’re bullshitting you.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago* (1 child)

    I'm speaking from experience, im that guy who said you might have to get out every root. Maybe we were special or maybe it was just the right environment but I started finding it in random patches coming up all over my old back yard. We tried digging it out, burning it, someone suggested tar, but nothing ever quite got ours. I wasn't alone, but I was probably talking to other people who had it bad too. No one complains if everything is fine.

    I'm in a new house now, but never again for me.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago

    That’s because you missed rhizomes, not roots. And if you keep cutting the remnants down after you get the main body of the plant out they’ll starve and die eventually, it just takes a few years.

    Speaking as someone who has worked with bamboo for a living for over a decade, an ounce of maintenance is definitely worth a pound of cure. Setting up a proper root-pruning system and cutting the young rhizomes twice a year before they have a chance to spread is much easier than chasing it down after the fact.

    Now, tropical timber clumping bamboo… those are tough to deal with once they’re mature. They’re like a boulder that grows lol.

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