My Yard or the Bamboos?

[BooNanners]

Dug a 1' deep trench around my Spectabilis hedge today and none to soon, as the rhizomes were off to the races, 5' past the area I designated as a no go zone. The trench isolates the bamboo on a 8'x 50' island along a ditch and I've come to realize is the difference between my owning the bamboo or it owning me! The importance of knowing what's going on under ground with bamboo cannot be understated. The health and vigor of a plant or a grove is the health and vigor of it's root mass and the trench allows me to experience that root mass first hand. Now to go trench the Rubro and Bissetii which are more vigorous yet than the Spectabilis, I may yet be able to keep my yard. Happiness is a shallow trench.

[bambootony]

Hey BooNanners,
80 FOOT for 1 species is alot!!!
Don't break an ankle on the ditch!!!!
I would like to add Spectabilis to my grove.

[BooNanners]

It may seem like a lot of space for a single species but if you want bamboo to size up you have to allow for sizable root mass. That 8' x 50' bed is 400 sq. ft. divided by 5 plants which is 80 sq. ft. per plant or about an area slightly more than the size of 2 sheets of plywood. My plants are still juveniles at 7' and 12 culms/plant but are bushy and vigorous and should get some height next Spring. Spectabilis is a worthy addition in that it's most attractive and a performer, sizing up quickly and spreading vigorously when it has the heat, sun and water it wants and one of the most cold hardy. One of my favorites.

[Alan_L]

The problem with unfilled trenches is they don't like to stay unfilled trenches. Depends a bit on soil type, but even in heavy clay, they'll eventually start collapsing and filling in (from animals, rain, you stepping on the edge, etc.)

Even so, I agree they make things a lot easier. I trenched around one of my raised beds and at one end a rhizome was trying to sneak out (found it this morning). Another of my raised beds does not have a trench right now, so I have to get to work on that soon.

I've often thought that it would be a gardener who invents the ground scanner, allowing us to see a small distance underground (for rocks, tree roots, moles, etc.). Now I'm pretty sure it will be a gardener who is also growing bamboo (or maybe their neighbor is growing the bamboo).

[BooNanners]

The problem with unfilled trenches is they don't like to stay unfilled trenches. Depends a bit on soil type, but even in heavy clay, they'll eventually start collapsing and filling in (from animals, rain, you stepping on the edge, etc.)

Alan, I plan to dig out the trench twice a year but a small price to pay for the piece of mind knowing my bamboo is going nowhere but up. All that dirt from the trenches is a windfall also, either raising the bed I'm trenching or used as fill for the holes left from transplants(I can never seem to get enough good dirt).

[Joseph Clemens]

Several years back I trenched around all my runners, helping them to stay where I wanted them and to more easily create "raised beds" for them to grow in. This has worked out fairly well, though with some limitations.

[zxylene]

How deep do you trench. Won't the rhizome just grow under the trench? Or do the try to span across the trench to reach the other side?

[BooNanners]

I trenched the depth of a shovel blade or about 10" and all the rhizomes I came across were in the top 6". Having heavy clay soil the trench also serves the purpose of improving drainage.

[BooNanners]

Several years back I trenched around all my runners, helping them to stay where I wanted them and to more easily create "raised beds" for them to grow in. This has worked out fairly well, though with some limitations.

Hi Joseph, I would like to hear of your experiences with trenching. What limitations did you experience? For warned is for armed.

[Joseph Clemens]

Okay:
I started my bamboo experience with a limited budget; so I purchased two Phyllostachys vivax each in one gallon pots. They were my first runners - I had almost no experience with bamboo, especially runners, so I prepared a bed about twenty feet long and six feet wide, my entire lot of one acre is almost entirely sandy loam, with a few small areas of clay about three feet down. I planted the two Phyllostachys vivax plants about four feet in and centered from each end of this slightly raised bed where I had tilled in horse manure and sulfur to ameliorate our typical Southwestern soil with it's high pH and covered the soil surface with an eight to ten inch layer of straw. By the next year each plant had expanded into a ring of a dozen or more four to six foot high culms in an expanding radius of about three feet.

Fast forward a couple more years; I discovered that Phyllostachys vivax adapts very well to my location in the U. S. desert Southwest. I couldn't afford barrier and besides I wanted to have easy access to digging propagation material so I had read about growing in raised beds. I started digging, wow, sure was lots of work to move that much dirt. I devised a method, using pieces of plywood in plastic bags, as forms, supported by garden stakes, which I fill with a mixture of straw/leaves and mud, this reinforces the walls of the raised beds, which are approximately eighteen to twenty inches high.



In my climate the biggest problem is how the exposed bed walls of dirt accelerate drying. Another problem is that some rhizomes push out segments of the bed wall, necessitating repair, fortunately most grow so they reinforce the walls rather than damaging them.

[BooNanners]

Thanks for sharing Joseph. I'm pleased to know there isn't any unexpected drawbacks to a trench, seems difficulties didn't arise until you attempted to obstruct the bamboo. Be it wood, plastic or even concrete, bamboo will attempt to go through, under or over any obstacle. A trench and a pair of garden shears is as simple and thorough as it gets. The only thing required of me is to pay attention. This could be the flaw in my plan.

[moriphen]

What a timely topic! I did my 1st bamboo walking session today.. I have P. aureosulcata 'Alata' and P. aureosulcata 'Aureocaulis' and together we did the Irish Jig 3ft this way and 4ft that way.. All I can say is do it early folks.. These plants are not going to walk themselves.. Seriously, they looked so much happier after a walk.

[BooNanners]

These plants are not going to walk themselves..

They most certainly will. Not only will they walk themselves, they'll go for a run. Speaking of Aureocaulis, a few of mine ran out of bounds and I've transplanted a half dozen 4 footers to pots for the deck and patio. Bamboo the gift that keeps on giving.

[firemountain]

I am also in my first year of newly planted bamboo. I have 2 separate groves on a raised bed, utilizing a rhizome barrier. They were only planted about 1 month ago so they are still getting used to the new soil. Unfortunately the D. Bissetti have been dropping more leaves than the Spectabilis.

My plan for rhizome control is to use my cordless sawzall with an extra long blade...@1 foot long, and carve out the area so the rhizome don't get out of control. Has anyone tried this method with any success or failure??

any info would be greatly appreciated. Thanks...

[bambootony]

Hey firemountain,
I would not try to use the blade to cut wood after it has been in the dirt.
It will get duller than heck in just a few minuets.