Bamboo and You: A Toxic Relationship

 Submitted by Maureen Mirabella, EAC Member.

It starts out innocently enough. An exposed patch along your backyard fence. Some less-than-beautiful pool mechanics. A neighbor you don’t want to see quite so much of. The temptation to reach for an environmental quick fix to protect the tranquility of your family’s outdoor retreat is certainly understandable. But if you find yourself reaching for bamboo, you may be signing up for a lot more drama than you expect.

I’m talking mortal combat with an invasive species of grass that can grow as fast as 35 inches a day to a height of 40 feet, forming a dark, nearly impenetrable grove of woody stems faster than you can say, where’s my mower? Sure, bamboo seems great in the beginning, but spend a little time together and you’ll discover that it doesn’t play well with others. It has sneaky little underground shoots that spread like a bad rumor, overtaking your yard in a blink, choking out all the other lovely plants and shrubs which had so peacefully coexisted before you invited bamboo to the party. And it isn’t exactly what you’d call trustworthy. Unless you build a pretty extensive underground barrier to keep it safely in place, bamboo feels completely free to take its show on the road, sneaking out of your yard, popping up between the bricks in your patio, buckling your driveway or sidewalk, even assaulting any weaknesses in your foundation or drainage system.

It’s not big on loyalty, either. The minute you’re distracted, bamboo will stray right off your property, creeping into adjacent fields or woods and swinging by the neighbors, setting up camp in their yards and patios and driveways, making that friendly after-work wave to the guy next door, let’s say, awkward. When you finally decide to end it with bamboo, exhausted by the work and the boundary-setting and the drama, that’s when you’ll discover what serious survival instincts look like because bamboo is not going to leave you without a fight. Getting rid of it is expensive and difficult and can take years. At that point, you may say to yourself, I wish I knew about all this drama ahead of time; I never would have planted bamboo.

So, you know, you’re welcome.

 

For more, slightly less dramatic, information, see seagrant.psu.edu.