Fascinating Thread: Ask Metafilter on Bamboo
This tale stood out from the crowd:
Mr. erst and I are currently battling running bamboo in the yard of the house we just bought. The neighbors tell us the previous owners planted it about 5 years ago.Before reading this thread I had no idea that some varieties of bamboo were invasive weeds that can quickly grow to the size of small trees. I just figured bamboo was normal bush-level vegetation that attracted pandas.
DO NOT PLANT THIS. FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY, DO NOT PLANT THIS STUFF.
It is utterly uncontrollable and invading the neighbor's yards, tunneling under fences and control barriers. The neighbors are not very happy about this.
We try to cut it back, and runners that grow almost a foot a day (and no, I'm not exaggerating) spring up near-daily. We're probably going to wind up hiring someone to come dig it all out. We could spend an hour a day trying to keep the bamboo under control. We've spent hours of our weekends just trying to keep it from spreading AND keep it from growing insanely tall and wide.