Invasive bambo triffid nightmare

[V8 90]

I spent a couple of years & easily in excess of £100 on chemicals trying to kill mine off. Someone suggested salt water so I mixed a load up, cut the bamboo down to about 4” long & poured the salt water liberally all over it including pouring it down each cut stem, I repeated it about 3-4 weeks later - left it for 6 months & it was all dead. This was about 5-6 years ago, it’s never come back. 

[amateur]

1 hour ago, V8 90 said:

I spent a couple of years & easily in excess of £100 on chemicals trying to kill mine off. Someone suggested salt water so I mixed a load up, cut the bamboo down to about 4” long & poured the salt water liberally all over it including pouring it down each cut stem, I repeated it about 3-4 weeks later - left it for 6 months & it was all dead. This was about 5-6 years ago, it’s never come back. 

Can anything else grow on the soil now, or have you totally sterilised it?

[amateur]

18 hours ago, 7daysinaweek said:

.....As our big palm tree is in full bloom I thought I would post up some pictures, it is well over 30 years old and when we moved in 20 years ago it had been in for over 10 years. It sprouts these wonderful fragrant blooms which look like big green tongues before they flower and attract a myriad of flies, bees and wasps, It has usually lost flower by the time the butterflies arrive onto the adjacent Budlleia. In 2009 we had a particularly hard winter and a real heavy snowfall followed with a several week period of extreme low frosts and it was so badly savaged by this that I thought it had died. At the time  it had a couple of less trunks but was the same height and after the harsh period all of the trunks from mid height upwards were rotted off. I was going to dig it out however, thankfully Mrs 7days asked for me to leave and see if it would 'do anything', which I did. I got the chainsaw out and cut all the trunks down to about 3 feet. To my surprise it started to shoot up from the bottom and this is how it has come on in those 10-11 years, I never water it and just let it get on with it.

atb

7diaw

 

That there palm looks like the Cordyline that we have in our garden. We were told that it would grow to only about 8'.

It is above the bedroom windows now and heading for chimney height 😂

Edited June 6, 2020 by amateur

[V8 90]

5 hours ago, amateur said:

Can anything else grow on the soil now, or have you totally sterilised it?

Some weeds grew, I’ve put a membrane on that piece of garden now & stoned it over 

Edited June 6, 2020 by V8 90

[7daysinaweek]

9 hours ago, al4x said:

I bit the bullet with our neighbours one that has been invading and cleared the fence line it was coming through and dig over the soil. An entire recycling bin of rhizomes later and it’s still popping up in the lawn 10 feet away from the fence. Can only hope this will reduce over time but we shall see.  Good luck and keep spraying it! 

I think it it growing under our big blow up pool up to about 10 foot away, will be doing some exploration digging later this year.

4 hours ago, V8 90 said:

I spent a couple of years & easily in excess of £100 on chemicals trying to kill mine off. Someone suggested salt water so I mixed a load up, cut the bamboo down to about 4” long & poured the salt water liberally all over it including pouring it down each cut stem, I repeated it about 3-4 weeks later - left it for 6 months & it was all dead. This was about 5-6 years ago, it’s never come back. 

Good to know V8, if the glycophosphate  fails then sodium chloride it is!

 

@amateur  Crikey!

Don't think my neighbors will be happy.

[TIGHTCHOKE]

This should work!

 

[welsh1]

21 minutes ago, TIGHTCHOKE said:

This should work!

 

Or if you use this wear some gloves, gave me the headache from hell, honestly just wanted to die

[kenholland]

B  S  K   stump root  killer.

[7daysinaweek]

@TIGHTCHOKE

@welsh1

Blaster Bates has been mentioned somewhere in this thread, he may be more adept with the old bang sticks.

[TIGHTCHOKE]

1 minute ago, 7daysinaweek said:

@TIGHTCHOKE

@welsh1

Blaster Bates has been mentioned somewhere in this thread, he may be more adept with the old bang sticks.

You would be very surprised how gentle you can be with good quality explosives.

[welsh1]

15 minutes ago, TIGHTCHOKE said:

You would be very surprised how gentle you can be with good quality explosives.

It's not the quantity it's the application of explosives, unless of course you just want one big mother of a bang ,then the more the merrier.

Neer ceases to amaze me the crater that appeared after setting off 500lb of explosives, or the shock wave from 1/2 a mile away rocking the truck.

[TIGHTCHOKE]

Hell yes, instant olympic sized swimming pool anyone?

Or enough finess to take hinges off a door!

[Dave-G]

I bought a 5 foot long crow bar to prise out the excess spread of mine then made a 14" deep concrete retaining wall around the part I wanted to keep to screen from the neighbours. I'm guessing there will be a problem on the other side of that green fence too.

Good luck with that hard graft. 

[7daysinaweek]

12 hours ago, kenholland said:

B  S  K   stump root  killer.

👍

9 hours ago, TIGHTCHOKE said:

You would be very surprised how gentle you can be with good quality explosives.

My experience of hand explosives stretched to the packets of Bangers you used to get as a kid 

7 hours ago, TIGHTCHOKE said:

Hell yes, instant olympic sized swimming pool anyone?

Or enough finess to take hinges off a door!

May have to resort to it for a new pool as the triffid appears to be growing under our blow up pool, we can feel the it underfoot. When the pool gets taken down in early November I will pull up the groundsheets it is sat on and do some exploration. It appears to have spread it's far reaching creepers around 10 foot out under the pool but not to the left facing it, I have no doubt that it will be under the shed by now. The pic below will give you an idea of its spread.

6 hours ago, Dave-G said:

I bought a 5 foot long crow bar to prise out the excess spread of mine then made a 14" deep concrete retaining wall around the part I wanted to keep to screen from the neighbours. I'm guessing there will be a problem on the other side of that green fence too.

Good luck with that hard graft. 

My neighbour remarked that it was coming up on her side in the border last year, I apologised and is one of the reasons I am desperately trying to rid us of it. She is also in the same boat as she has a similar bamboo of height and width planted in her garden adjoining her neighbour.

[Mice!]

2 hours ago, 7daysinaweek said:

May have to resort to it for a new pool as the triffid appears to be growing under our blow up pool,

I could have brought my trunks as well 😅😅😅

 

[Dave-G]

3 hours ago, 7daysinaweek said:

👍

My experience of hand explosives stretched to the packets of Bangers you used to get as a kid 

May have to resort to it for a new pool as the triffid appears to be growing under our blow up pool, we can feel the it underfoot. When the pool gets taken down in early November I will pull up the groundsheets it is sat on and do some exploration. It appears to have spread it's far reaching creepers around 10 foot out under the pool but not to the left facing it, I have no doubt that it will be under the shed by now. The pic below will give you an idea of its spread.

My neighbour remarked that it was coming up on her side in the border last year, I apologised and is one of the reasons I am desperately trying to rid us of it. She is also in the same boat as she has a similar bamboo of height and width planted in her garden adjoining her neighbour.

 

Would one of those neighbours have better entry access for a mini digger?

Its not much work to remove fence panels - and a good idea to be able to dig out under them anyway. Might be worth a three way funding to hire a digger for something like £100 a day.

Edited June 7, 2020 by Dave-G

[7daysinaweek]

2 hours ago, Mice! said:

I could have brought my trunks as well 😅😅😅

 

Maybe next time K 🏊‍♂️ 

2 hours ago, Dave-G said:

Would one of those neighbours have better entry access for a mini digger?

Its not much work to remove fence panels - and a good idea to be able to dig out under them anyway. Might be worth a three way funding to hire a digger for something like £100 a day.

 No access next door either Dave, it is down to brute force. 

[amateur]

1 hour ago, 7daysinaweek said:

Maybe next time K 🏊‍♂️ 

 No access next door either Dave, it is down to brute force. 

You omitted the ignorance 😁

[lord_seagrave]

Would a stump grinder work?

I’ve had to face one yet, but it’s only a matter of time.

LS

[woody walloper]

7 hours ago, lord_seagrave said:

Would a stump grinder work?

 

 

top answer. probably ten minutes work,only needs side gate access.

[al4x]

8 hours ago, lord_seagrave said:

Would a stump grinder work?

I’ve had to face one yet, but it’s only a matter of time.

LS

But it depends how much it chops up the rhizomes and mixes them with the soil, as these spread massively in all directions you would then have to keep on top of any re growth. 

[TIGHTCHOKE]

Only one conclusion from this thread!

 

Don't ever plant bamboo!

[WalkedUp]

If you have a side gate you can easily get a digger in. You only need 850/900mm passage. When I planned my extension I called a couple of local hire places and checked specs online - to future proof it. Recently when it came to relocating a hedgeline I hired the right digger and drove it in myself, was quite easy to do.

[Mice!]

1 hour ago, TIGHTCHOKE said:

Only one conclusion from this thread!

 

Don't ever plant bamboo!

We put some in to block a view of bins and door of our neighbour's,  few years later they had a  pattern imprinted driveway done, if it pops up through that its going to be a difficult conversation 😯

[JDog]

Several years ago in the Cotswolds I planted a number of Phyllostachys nigra plants for a client as a screen from a neighbouring house. These were 3m tall and were in enormous plastic pots. The client expressed surprise when I planted them still in the pots. If she ever read this thread she would know why.