Bamboo is Bullshit: My Neighbors Do Stupid Things in Their Yards

Have you ever dealt with bamboo in your yard? It sucks. My husband said it should be a crime to plant bamboo willy nilly when I wondered aloud if there were any city ordinances dealing with the blasted weed, and I can't say I disagree with him. I think 5 years hard time would be plenty for people to really think about what they have done and repent.

Looks lovely, doesn't it? I love the things that can be done with bamboo, but I want nothing to do with the living plant except to massacre it until it is far far away from my house.

Photo by kazuend on Unsplash

We bought our house in 2011 and have always known that our neighbors had a stand of bamboo in their back yard, (which they planted on PURPOSE!) and which had spread to the neighbor's yard behind us. A couple of years ago, we began to wonder if we should take precautions against the encroaching botanical scourge, but other things were going on and we did nothing.

Last year, I began to really worry when I realized it was popping up just a few feet away from the property line. Finally, the inevitable occurred and the neighbors told me a few days ago that they had noticed a few canes in our raspberry bushes (or brambles or tangles or dangerous spiky vines or whatever). SHIT!!! I will defend my raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries against any one or anything threatening to come between me and delicious homegrown fresh fruit! I've waited years to get a true crop and I will not be foiled by bamboo! I already have enough to deal with fighting the birds, squirrels, chipmunks and deer. Can't a girl eat her hard earned berries unmolested by inconvenient nature?!?

Being 8.5 months pregnant myself, I deferred to my husband about ripping that shit out of the yard pronto. I supervised while he dug up the roots. Now, I don't watch horror movies because I get a headache from screaming, but I felt like I was watching a horror flick when I saw the size, girth, length, strength, everything about these plaguey roots and the plants attached to them. What in holy hades are we gonna do now?!?

I sent out a panicky message on Nextdoor (a neighborhood social media platform) asking if anyone had every successfully defeated this beast and got back a lot of responses ranging from "you're fucked, that shit is undead" to " how many harsh chemicals and/or backhoes are you willing to use?" And in spite of the fact that I specifically said I don't want to call the zoo about it, (Zoo Atlanta has a bamboo program, but screw Ya Lun and Xi Lun - sorry endangered species, but this is serious!) several people told me to call the zoo! No one reads anymore, but that's a rant for another day.

But the story is even more complicated. The woman who lives behind us is dying. She has been in hospice for several weeks and will probably not survive this week. Her brother is taking care of cleaning out her house and selling it, which has been a very long and complex endeavor since she is a bona fide hoarder and had not let anyone in her house for years. Her yard is kind of the same way - there are at least three other species of garbage plant coming over, under, or through the fence from her yard at any given time. We never got to know her because she is a bit of a recluse and only really liked about two people on earth and her dog, who died a couple of months ago.

So, now, because I have an over active conscience, I am trying to get in touch with the neighbor's brother to ask his permission to deal with the bamboo ourselves while his sister is dying. I feel like a very shallow person indeed, but I don't want to be thrown in jail as a bamboo vigilante either. My baby would be born behind bars and it would be a mess.

Then I was telling the other neighbor about my efforts to do the right thing - the wife of the original bamboo planter - or his accomplice if you like - and she tells me she's got plans to kill a tree in her neighbor's yard, two houses down from mine. She figures she's going to live long enough for this poor innocent oak to grow big and strong and start dropping acorns on the roof of her carport like its mama, which drives her batty, but what do you expect with a tin roof on a carport in Atlanta, city in a forest? So she things her neighbor won't notice if she offs this 10 foot tall oak tree in her front yard.

Fast forward a few days since I started writing this post. I got permission to do whatever we want with the bamboo - so we've cut down around 100 of them and dragged them to the curb. We kept some for our gardening and fort building needs and gave some away as well. The neighbor behind us died a couple of days ago and her yard is less bamboo ridden, but we spent two days working on it and it still needs A LOT of work to be half way decent again. I assume the house will go on the market soon.

Photo by Samuel Zeller on Unsplash

No word on the other tree murdering neighbor - although she was talking about destroying bird nests to stop the birds pooping on her car. Some people just have no pity! All of our wing mirrors are covered in bird crap because they love to sit there and do their thing, but I just figure that's part of life - living with other creatures...

Now my husband is talking about wanting to buy the deceased neighbor's house so we can control the bamboo situation. I'm not sure that's a good enough reason to spend 300k and go into debt. I'm sure the place would rent with no problem, but we should probably think it through a little more.

Have you ever been invaded by plants or animals that just don't ever give up the fight?