What Happened to the Bamboo?

It’s been a long time coming. Like most people, when I first saw it, I thought the bamboo was very cool and exotic. Guests in the spring, summer, and fall often asked about it with curiousity. Guests arriving in the winter, often had to deal with the hail or snow weighing the bamboo trees down (see below for falling bamboo trees), and landing the branches on their vehicles. 

Bamboo doesn’t belong in Michigan. It’s not native, and indeed, most varieties here are exteremly invasive. Some stats: 

• 10 years ago, a renter planted two small bamboo shoots thinking it would be cool.
• Each of the three years I’ve lived in the house, at least another 100 new bamboo trees grew, and likely more. 
• When they were cut down in August of 2024, there were nearly 1,000 trees cut. 
• The bamboo was so strong that in the area where it grew, no buckthorn grew. The rest of my yard is being taken over by the invasive buckthorn, but the bamboo won out. Silver lining - a large patch of my yard doesn’t have buckthorn!
• The bamboo is so hard to eradicate that Creative Landscape Design, the company I hired to remove it (and all the invasive species in my yard) plans to spray herbicide at least four times before we can plant anything else in that area. 

So, I decided to have the bamboo removed for all of the reasons above, but mostly…it was taking over in a way that seemed like would never stop. 

Here is the story in photos…

The Driveway Side of Hillside Manor

This was my first summer at Hillside Manor. You can see it was quite open in this area. That’s my neighbor’s RV sticking out. This photo was from May of 2022 - you can see the many shoots coming up. They became full trees by the summer’s end.

This is that same area, the same view, two years later. The full area had been filled in - great for privacy - but terribly invasive, and a challenge in the winter. 

Here’s what it looked like gazing down the driveway. It’s a nice canopy, but you can see how they lean, and this is summer! Imagine rain, hail, or snow, and those trees lay all the way down onto the driveway or on anything in its path.

Heading into the Back Yard

Walking toward my back yard, the bamboo was also filling in where there are plenty of forest trees. It was hard to tell what was what, and eventually it would take over and kill anything else in its path. 

Here is the same view now, post bamboo. It’s still pretty dense. There is quite a bit in here. It will be interesting to see what will grow once the bamboo is fully gone. 

The Shoots

Creative Landscape Design’s first step was to cut the bamboo down and get it out of the way. Then, they poured herbicide down the shoots to kill the roots. They expect to come back in three weeks when growth starts again. They’ll come and spray again. Then, in October, they’ll spray a final time this fall. Come spring, they think they’ll need to spray at least once more before planting native shrubs. It’s THAT hard to eradicate. 

The Solution

They hauled away 5 truck loads of bamboo. Crazy! Then, they sprayed. 

This is the view now. I can see my neighbors’ yards because I’m at the top of the hill (of Hillside Drive). Eventually, I’ll plant and put up a privacy area again, but I’ll wait until I know the bamboo is gone. And, yes, I had to have them cut the bamboo out of my nieghbor’s yard too. I started to wonder if it would take over the neighborhood. 

So, if you visit and wonder where the bamboo went (if you’re a return guest) or why this one spot of my yard doesn’t have privacy (f you’re a new guest), now you know the bamboo story! Au revoir, bamboo! 🎋