Bamboo Revisited

More than a year ago I wrote about trying to kill bamboo behind our garage.  I decided to smother it with carpet, and I planned to leave the carpet there for a very long time.  I didn't know how long - I just wanted to make sure the bamboo was dead.  More than a year later I had to remove the carpet, because our Magnolia tree was being removed.  It wasn't  long enough, in my opinion, to kill the bamboo, and it looks like I was right.

Recently I've spent time back there removing wood chips, leveling the ground and building a chicken coop, and I've noticed the bamboo coming back with a vengeance.  I've pulled up some shoots, but I have a lot of work ahead of me.  I'm hoping the chickens will help when they arrive.

Yard Work

Ella has been asking to help out in the yard lately. I have things she can do, but I feel like I need to show her or explain really well what she can do to help me out. So, here it goes:

The first thing that needs done is the bed along the azalea hedge needs weeding. The newest part, closest to the fence, has clumps of grass coming up through the mulch. There's bound to be some, when you lay newspaper down and mulch on top of that. The best way to pull this grass up is to grab small clumps of it as close to the ground as possible, and pull slowly, trying to get as much of the roots as you can. I know it won't happen every time, but it'll keep it from coming back in the future. As you get closer to the street, there will be more weeds instead of grass. There will be more of them, but they'll be easier to pull up. Use the same technique as before, grabbing it as close to the ground as possible and pulling slowly. There's mostly grass - maybe crabgrass - among the daylilies, so if you pull that out, that would be great. When you're pulling weeds, pick a spot nearby and make a pile - I'll put them at the street on trash day.

There's crabgrass invading the desert garden as well as dollar weed - it has a round leaf, like a dollar coin - maybe not as large. They've got a long root connecting them, so if you grab one just under the soil, you'll be able to pull up a whole string of them. There are a few other types of weeds in there, but they should be easy to pull.

All around the raised beds, in the back yard and a little in the front, crabgrass and dollar weed has invaded the area. All of that needs to be pulled up. I made the mistake of trying to spray Roundup near the vegetables. I ended killing our pole beans, so I don't want to take any chances with that again.

The last thing I need help with is cleaning behind the garage, where the chickens will be. I've cut down (I know it will come back) and smothered most of the bamboo, but I need the rest of it cut down. It'll probably easier to use the small pruning shears. If you cut it as close to the ground as you can, that'll make it easier to smother later. I'm going to cut down some of that magnolia tree, to let in more sunlight, which will be good for the chickens. The most important thing to remember back there is to avoid the poison ivy. (pictured) Thanks!

Garden Update

A number of things not significant enough for their own post have been happening in the garden and I thought I would lump then all together here.

It turns out the irises growing in the pond filter are two different types. The other type is the same as the one in the bog. In my walk around the yard today, I noticed that one of the irises from the Spontaneous Craigslist Roadtrip is actually blooming. I really need to do something with those.

My collection of canna that was in a plastic bag is growing again this year - the second in a row. I decided today I need to plant that somewhere too.

There's new growth on our cactuses large and small and one of our yuccas out front is about to bloom.

I found some carpet last week and brought it home to smother bamboo. I let it sit in the driveway for a couple of days until I heard it was going to rain. It was heavy enough for me dry - I definitely didn't want to deal with it wet. I got out there that evening and laid it out. I also took the carpet I was saving in the garage and did the same thing. Almost the whole area behind the garage, with a few exceptions, is bamboo free. Now we're one step closer to doing something with that area - like getting chickens. I just have to put up a fence, trim some trees and build a hen house.

Running Bamboo

I was behind the garage today and got a good look at the bamboo that I've been fighting since we bought our house more than three years ago. Once again it made me google "bamboo eradication", but this time I had a different plan of attack. I have read about and tried numerous ways of getting rid of bamboo. Herbicides don't work - I even read about cutting off the stalk and immediately spraying the herbicide on the fresh cut. Digging it might work, but it's back-breaking work. I know it's an environmentally bad idea, but I even thought of "salting the earth"! I just remembered that I had this conversation with a Lowe's employee who said she had a way to get rid of it, but she couldn't tell me while she was at work.

My latest idea struck me as a pretty good one - smothering the bamboo. I read a post about it and found out it's not foolproof. Bamboo rhizomes will eventually grow out from under what you are using to smother it with. I have some pond liner that I've been using to kill grass and make planting beds, but I don't have a large amount of it, and I didn't want to stop using it for that purpose. Posts mentioned inexpensive tarps - one mentioned using old carpet which I thought was a great idea. I made a mental note of it and went about my day. Soon after I had to run an errand and less than a block away were three rolled up carpets someone was throwing out. I brought them home and got to work behind the garage.

I usually don't want to go into the small stand of bamboo in the summer. There is poison ivy and ankle-deep Magnolia leaves with creatures probably living under them. Being as cool as it was today, I figured it was about the best time to venture back there. I started by cutting back the bigger stuff - small trees, etc, and then the bamboo growing along the neighbor's fence before I put the carpet down. While back there, I found spider lilies and a number of small Yaupon hollies. Some of the bamboo I cut, while I decided to lay the carpet on top of others, flattening it by walking on the carpet. I avoided putting the carpet on the areas with the lilies and the hollies until I can transplant those sometime this week. I think I've also decided that I'll go back and cut all the bamboo and put the carpet back down, so there's less of a chance of it rising up.

I still need more carpet and I need to prune a lot of plants and trees back there. That's where I'm planning to keep chickens in the spring. At this rate I don't know if I can pull that off. I'll keep you posted.