How to get rid of Bamboo
United Kingdom 
There are large clumps of bamboo in the front and back garden, I have tried and am still trying to dig it all up but with little progress, whilst I never usually resort to chemicals is there anything selective and safe that will help get rid of the bamboo, The garden is quite large but the bamboo is taking over. Please help,
12 Sep, 2009
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« Instead of flowering my lilly has produced what looks like seeds instead, why?
Chop off any new shoots as close to the main plant as you can, following them back. It sounds like a non-clump forming one and from removing my own last month, they can run for meters undetected underground.
Cut the foliage down and paint the cut stems with a stump killer, or if there are no plants around it, then try spraying with glyphosate based weed killer. This will need many applications for it to work its way through the underground thick roots.
The only trouble is bamboo roots are very compacted and dry out the soil as you may of discovered, and as the plants contain silicone in a form, it will be a long timfe before the entire root system has rotted completely.
Keep an eye out or any new runner popping up and pull and paint.
They are a real pain to dig up but i persevered over a few days, attcking it a bit at a time and the roots came out in one big lump, soil and all
12 Sep, 2009