Sunday, October 24, 2010

Aggravated bamboo! - Maree

Soil . . . scoop up a handful of the magic stuff. Look at it closely. What wonders it holds as it lies there in your palm. Tiny sharp grains of sand, little faggots of wood and leaf fiber, infinitely small round pieces of marble, fragments of shell, specks of black carbon, a section of vertebrae from some minute creature. And mingling with it all the dust of countless generations of plants and flowers, trees, animals and – yes – our own, age-long forgotten forebears, gardeners of long ago. Can this incredible composition be the common soil?
- Stuart Maddox Masters, The Seasons Through



A bit of Bamboo growing in the one corner of my pond area - I DID make a concerted effort to remove it all, after it almost cracked my pond in half, but here it is, back again after our Spring rains! When removing this, as you dig, you see runners going in all directions under-ground, and it's not good enough to just chop them off and remove the main plant, because shortly there are sprouts everywhere! It's as if the digging and chopping actually aggravates and activates them!

8 comments:

  1. Maree, I am so in love with your bamboo.

    annie

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  2. It's beautiful...had no idea it was so invasive...

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  3. I like the bold bamboo shoots against that abstract drippy background. It actually says in paints what you're saying about it in life :)
    A friend of mine said he was thinking about planting some bamboo as a privacy screen. My advice was DON'T!

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  4. There are many different types of bamboo, most of which are spreading an highly invasive. But if you pick a "clumping" bamboo it will not spread. Ask your local nursery man.

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  5. Thank you Annie! Pleased you like it!

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  6. I absolutely love it Kate, if only I can keep it under control (lol)! and the Weavers absolutely love to nest in it.

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  7. Thanks a lot Vickie! This bamboo makes an absolutely lovely (thick!) privacy screen, almost impossible to climb through it, if one could only keep it where it's supposed to be! Somebody advised me to dig a trench in front of it, line it with plastic and possibly a brick retainer edging - I haven't tried the brick, but I know it's got absolutely no regard for plastic! Good advice you gave your friend!

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  8. thanks for the tip anonymous, but I have now settled for Nandina (Sacred Bamboo) as an alternative, and the bonus is it turns bright red in Autumn!

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