Bamboo usually arrives as a privacy screen, often planted by a previous owner or the neighbor. A few years later it's coming up in the lawn, under the deck, through the edge of the driveway and on the far side of the fence. Mowing and cutting slow it down for a season, and then it comes back.
The canes aren't the problem. The rhizomes are: a mat of underground stems that runs sideways through the soil and stores enough energy to keep pushing up new shoots. Getting rid of bamboo for good means getting those rhizomes out of the ground.
Running vs. clumping bamboo
Bamboo comes in two growth types. Running bamboo, such as the Phyllostachys species that includes golden bamboo, spreads by long rhizomes that can travel well beyond the original planting and send up canes wherever they surface. Clumping bamboo, such as Fargesia, grows in a tight, slowly expanding clump and stays where it was planted.
If bamboo is showing up in places nobody planted it, it's a running type. That's the kind that crosses property lines, and it's what most bamboo removal is about.
Why cutting bamboo down doesn't kill it
Every cane is connected to the rhizome network below. Cutting the canes takes away the leaves, but the rhizomes still hold stored energy and push up new shoots, often within weeks during the growing season.
Cutting and mowing every new shoot, season after season, will eventually wear a stand down, but it takes years of steady effort, and any rhizome left alone keeps the stand alive. For most people, removing the rhizomes is the only practical way to be done with it.
How bamboo removal works
The canes are cut at ground level and run through the chipper or hauled away. Then the rhizome mat is dug out, by machine where there's room and by hand near foundations, fences, patios and the roots of trees you want to keep. Rhizomes mostly run in the upper layer of soil, which is what makes digging them out practical.
Pieces of rhizome left in the soil can sprout, so the dug area is raked and sorted to pull out as much as possible. Even after a careful job, plan to watch the area through the next growing season and pull or cut any shoot that appears while it's still small.
Bamboo coming from next door
A lot of bamboo problems start on someone else's property. If your neighbor's stand is spreading into your yard, removing the bamboo on your side solves today's problem, but new rhizomes will keep crossing the line as long as the source stays.
Start with a conversation, ideally in writing. Some Chester County townships have adopted rules on running bamboo, so it's worth asking your township or borough whether yours has one. Whether you can recover costs from a neighbor is a legal question for a Pennsylvania attorney.
Rhizome barriers
When bamboo next door is staying, a rhizome barrier along the property line is the usual way to keep it out. It's a continuous wall of heavy plastic sheeting set vertically in a trench, with the top edge left slightly above the soil so rhizomes trying to cross over it can be seen and cut.
Barriers need upkeep. Seams have to be sealed, and the top edge should be checked each year for rhizomes trying to cross over. A barrier with a gap or a buried top edge won't hold a running bamboo for long.
Before you spray, tarp or burn
Plenty of home remedies get suggested for bamboo, and most of them only affect what's above ground. Boiling water and vinegar kill the shoots they touch but don't reach the rhizome mat. Tarps can suppress shoots under them, but rhizomes often run out past the edges and come up elsewhere. Burning the canes leaves the rhizomes underground untouched.
Herbicide on regrowth can weaken a stand over time, but it usually takes repeated applications across more than one season, and it has to be kept off plants you want to keep.
Where we do bamboo removal
From the West Chester office we cover all of Chester County. Local pages for West Chester and the nearby townships, Exton, Downingtown, Malvern, Paoli & Berwyn, Kennett Square & Unionville, Phoenixville, Coatesville and Chester Springs & Glenmoore explain what tree work looks like in each part of the county, and the full list of Chester County service areas covers the rest.
Related tree services
- Land & Lot Clearing: Lots, fence lines, overgrown acreage and brush cleared for building, pasture or a usable yard.
- Stump Grinding: Stumps ground below grade so you can mow, plant or regrade, with the chips cleaned up or left for mulch.
