How to Get Rid of Bamboo From Your Yard

Cutting and Watering Bamboo

Some experts recommend continuously cutting and watering a bamboo grove to eradicate it. This removal method involves cutting the plants to ground level to prevent them from completing photosynthesis. The process might need to be repeated for up to six months to achieve full eradication.

1. Cut Bamboo to Ground Level

   Cut the bamboo to ground level with pruners or a handsaw. Immature plants that exist on the periphery of the grove can also be mowed down with a lawnmower.

2. Water the Area

   Water the area thoroughly with a garden hose or sprinkler.

3. Repeat

   Repeat this cutting (or mowing) and watering process until you've exhausted the roots of their energy store. Eventually, they'll no longer send up new shoots.

   Allow any remaining rhizomes (underground stems that send up new shoots) to rot in the soil.

Digging Up Bamboo

The process of digging up bamboo takes effort, and it can be a year or more until you achieve eradication. Thus, this method is recommended only for smaller patches or clumping varieties. Clumping bamboo does not contain rhizomes, so it's easier to remove from the soil.

1. Water Bamboo

   Water the bamboo patch with a garden hose or sprinkler. Allow the moisture to soak into the soil for about half an hour.

2. Cut Down Bamboo

   Cut down the bamboo with pruners or a saw, so only a small amount of greenery extends from the earth.

3. Loosen the Soil

   Using a spade shovel, dig around the base of the bamboo plant to loosen the soil.

4. Pull the Plant Out

   Pull the plant from the ground, rootball and all. For non-clumping varieties, follow the plant's rhizomes as best as you can to remove all of the underground shoots.

5. Break Up Rhizomes

   Use an ax to break up the rhizomes. Remove all pieces of the rhizomes if possible.

6. Repeat

   Repeat the process until you've dug up and removed the whole patch.

7. Dig Up New Shoots

   Dig up new shoots once they form, and remove the rhizomes below the surface. Repeat the process until nothing grows back.

Smothering Bamboo With Tarps

Another method for ridding your yard of bamboo is smothering the plant with tarps. This typically takes around two months. However, the bamboo might be able to spread beyond the covered perimeter, so you have to closely monitor the situation.

1. Cut Bamboo

   Using pruners or a handsaw, cut the bamboo to ground level.

2. Cover With Tarps or Garbage Bags

   Cover the entire area with dark plastic tarps or garbage bags. Secure them with landscaping pins, or place rocks on top of the tarps.

3. Wait

   Wait several weeks or months until the contents below the tarps have suffocated.

   If the covered bamboo patch sends out rhizomes beyond the tarps, creating new sprouts, cut and cover the sprouts immediately. Alternatively, plant other proliferating perennials around the border to create a natural barrier that will crowd out new bamboo shoots.

Tips for Removing Bamboo From Your Yard

When digging up bamboo it might help to have a sifter, so you can sift through the soil to locate stray rhizomes. Any fraction of a rhizome left behind can result in a new shoot.

For the smothering method, consider enlisting the help of buried barriers. You can effectively fence in the bamboo by sinking plastic barriers into the ground around the grove. Barriers should run 30 inches deep and extend a few inches above the ground to prevent rhizomes from weaseling their way over the top. This method also works well if you have a patch of bamboo you want to keep yet control.

Polygonum cuspidatum, also known as Japanese bamboo or Japanese knotweed, is not a true bamboo, but it acts similar to one. You can use the same methods to eradicate this species.