I've uploaded pictures of my bamboo. Can anyone tell me what type it is? It’s probably 25 foot tall now and an inch and a half thick, but it gets to least 30-40 foot tall and two inches thick.

I live in the mid-Hudson Valley of New York. This patch is around 15 years old. Maybe 150' long and 60' wide at the widest. It seems much more vigorous recently. Maybe because we literally didn’t get winter last year (global warming?) Now I think it’s time to limit its spread.

It's July and I'm getting small leaves sprouting in the lawn, in lines up to 20-25 feet from the patch. I've thought about severing the roots and then mowing them. Or should I just mow them down? I’ve added a picture of the sprouts in the lawn.

On three sides of the patch there’s lawn or field. If mowing alone keeps them in check then limiting the patches spread should be fairly easy. On the fourth side, around thirty feet from the edge of the patch is a stone wall of the old New England variety. Lots of rocks piled on top of each other. The rock walls/pile of rocks is quite wide in some parts, probably 10-15 feet wide. I've thought about just letting the patch grow to the walls. Will the wall contain it? This is out in the country with the nearest house several hundred feet away, but I want to be responsible about not allowing it to get onto neighbor’s property. I've uploaded some pictures of the wall.

The land is very rocky. I was thinking of getting a tool to slice off the roots underground. What would accomplish this most easily? I was thinking of going up to $125 for such a tool, but if there are electric or gas driven tools that might do the job better, I'm curious about them too. I'm 65 years old and working with the bamboo isn’t going to get any easier physically.

Here are two links for tools from Gemplers.
Groundshark D-handle Shovel - GEMPLER'S

Heavy-Duty Root Cutter, 101239 | Ben Meadows

What do you think?

Thank you,
Alan Silverman

For a better chance of getting an exact id, I'd suggest posting on this forum; bambooweb.info • Bamboo Forum

All I can say is that it does appear to be a Phyllostachys of some type, because it does appear to have the groove ("sulcus") which appears on alternating sides of the culm, switching side at each node. The green culm with a hint of yellow in the sulcus makes me think P. aurea "flavescens inversa" or Phyllostachys vivax 'Huanvenzhu'. With P. aurea, you usually get some close together nodes near the bottom of the cane.

Although yours is certainly not the yellow crookstem bamboo (P. aureosulcata) taht is famously invasive in New York, pretty much all species of Phyllostachys are likely to be pretty invasive in your climate. Yes, mowing (or browsing by animals) will in principle stop it spreading, but you need to able to mow a good 12 foot band all the way around it, and even then be alert for it coming up twice that far away. Garden walls won't stop it, they can spread up to about 2 feet below the surface, and push their way between gaps between stones. People who are serious about stopping bamboo put in reinforced concrete undergound barriers to a depth of about 3 feet deep.

Unfortunately growing running bamboos in climates where they really do run is potentially a liability, unless you can really isolate them to keep them in a clump. P. aurea has taken over entire hillsides in the Azores.

In article ,
Alan Silverman wrote:

I've uploaded pictures of my bamboo. Can anyone tell me what type it
is? It’s probably 25 foot tall now and an inch and a half thick, but it
gets to least 30-40 foot tall and two inches thick.

I live in the mid-Hudson Valley of New York. This patch is around 15
years old. Maybe 150' long and 60' wide at the widest. It seems much
more vigorous recently. Maybe because we literally didn’t get winter
last year (global warming?) Now I think it’s time to limit its spread.


It's July and I'm getting small leaves sprouting in the lawn, in lines
up to 20-25 feet from the patch. I've thought about severing the roots
and then mowing them. Or should I just mow them down? I’ve added a
picture of the sprouts in the lawn.

On three sides of the patch there’s lawn or field. If mowing alone
keeps them in check then limiting the patches spread should be fairly
easy.

Mowing works perfectly well, and is easy.

On the fourth side, around thirty feet from the edge of the patch
is a stone wall of the old New England variety. Lots of rocks piled on
top of each other. The rock walls/pile of rocks is quite wide in some
parts, probably 10-15 feet wide. I've thought about just letting the
patch grow to the walls. Will the wall contain it?

No - either keep the 30 feet mown, which should hold it back, or you
have to get into root barriers (expensive and/or laborious - mowing is
easier.)

This is out in the
country with the nearest house several hundred feet away, but I want to
be responsible about not allowing it to get onto neighbor’s property.

Good bamboo control makes good neighbors. Right neighborly of you.

The land is very rocky. I was thinking of getting a tool to slice off
the roots underground. What would accomplish this most easily? I was
thinking of going up to $125 for such a tool, but if there are electric
or gas driven tools that might do the job better, I'm curious about them
too. I'm 65 years old and working with the bamboo isn’t going to get
any easier physically.

A lawn edger, but they are not fond of rocks, and mowing works.

A sharp spade also works to cut roots.

--
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Please don't feed the trolls. Killfile and ignore them so they will go away.

There are two types of bamboo in the world with approx 15oo species and it falls into two categories sympodial and monopodial bamboo. This even know as clumpers(sympodial) and runners(monopodial). The images are seems like Fargesia sp. 'Jinzhaigou', P.aureosulcata 'Spectabilis', Phyllostachys nigra and Fargesia robusta.