Monday, April 11, 2011

And I used to love bamboo



What awfully stressfull and busy few weeks behind. We decided last year to pull out all our rose bushes on the side yard, which is about 140 feet long fence line. Well, so we pulled them, tossed them to the alley, and posted on Craig's list that there were free roses... like we did with our agaves. The roses were gone, and we planted some crap ton of bamboo for a nice hedge to keep the noise from the street little more muffled. It didn't seem to grow much last year, but when the March hit the Texas, the bamboo started to push several feet long shoots up in one day, all over the place. It was spreading like a wild fire, and I lost all my sleep over it. It had already spread by the time onto the alley, and onto the lawn. We decided to get a piece of mind, and hired someone to tear it down, while we dug it out from the alley, and what ever would shoot up at the lawn.
Oh boy, last nights storm with a ton of rain made the shoots pop up like mushrooms, right out of nowhere, there were nothing on the lawn when I left to work 12 hours earlier, but when I came back from work, I saw them all over the place. We knew immediately when the sun rose where all the missed rhizomes were. One here, another there, oh, these are not the same one, there's more than couple here. Oh, the joy of discovering.
In the morning, when the sun started to rise, and I got home from work, I dashed to the lawn still wearing my scrubs, and just started digging the roots up. I felt like I grew up a foot or two, I had so much clay and mud on the bottom of my clogs. But I got the ones from the lawn dug out. At least what ever shot up today, tomorrow there might be a whole new set of rhizomes.
Later on when I had woken up, and my DH had gotten off from his work, we left for a dinner, and when we came back, I wanted to, not caring that it was dark, to see if anything came out on the alley, where we already dug all of it out. Oh yeah, there it is still growing, not as bad as it was, but it defenitely is not gone. I think some more digging and Round Up is in our future.
Did this teach us anything? Yes, bamboo grows in the rain like a weed... oh, and... and... naaaah, I guess it was nothing important. Next week we will plant something else that will become really expensive to first plant, and then tear down the next year. Invasive is a good thing when you want some sound barriers.
Anyone know a good land scape designer?