The gardener who was at our home recently said that you need to dig 90cm deep to place a barrier to contain running bamboo. He recommended leaving them in very large planter pots. They will grow fine. There are some at a restaurant in the village next to ours that are amazing. They are in large concrete pots.

I know this is in vaud but it sounds a little strange, usually this law is with reference to planting trees, Bamboo is considered to be a grass not a tree.
this would have to go to Civil court and become a private legal case..

I guess you have never seen a bamboo forest, or building and scaffolding bade fo bamboo trees, with a diameter of about 50cm and 30 m tall then?

Bamboo can lift patios, walls, foundations, break into sewers, etc. A friend of mine planted some and after she died, her husband didn't really look after the garden for a while. It cost him about 20 grand to get rid.

Such a pity that people like the OP come on EF to ask the question, and then never follow up with what happened next- as it could be interesting and useful for others.

I too am wondering what may have happened with the OP's situation.

I'm curious too, its been 10 years since, wonder what happened to all that bamboo

The following article (in German) describes the legal situation well:

https://www.axa.ch/de/privatkunden/b...schneiden.html

Your neighbour has no legal right to charge you for the cost of having a gardener remove the bamboo unless you agree to it. However, he can demand that you remove the bamboo yourself if the plant encroaches on his property.

For fear of stating the obvious, bamboo can easily be contained using root barriers. You basically dig a trench around the bamboo, put in the barrier (basically a heavy duty plastic sheet that goes about 60cm deep) and then put back the soil. If you do it right you should have no trouble with bamboo spreading outside the barrier for decades.

If you put in the barrier at the same time you are planting the bamboo it's even easier.

Bamboo is an invasive plant and furthermore not indigeneous to Switzerland. Once it has established itself it basically starves off all other plants. You can't really compare that to a couple of sunflower seeds spreading onto the neighbour's patch.

I like bamboo very much myself and have several different types. But only in the place and all contained behind root barriers.

Our previous neighbours planted bamboo (without asking us) over 10 years ago. They sold the house and since 2 years the bamboo has been encroaching onto our property. We spoke to our "new" neighbours and they have agreed to remove *all* trace of the bamboo and replant smaller bushes.
The bamboo covers about 12m2 soI think it is not going to be cheap for them.

I still expect its doable for far under the price that the OP got quoted.

Maybe a mini excavator, or a couple of gardeners with the right tools and technique should have it out in a couple of hours.

An article suggested on page 1 recommends 100-120 cm of plastic, at least 2 mm thick and of the right material. At least 5 cm of the plastic must be above ground and the junctions must be sealed with metal brackets otherwise roots will find a way through it.
For each recommendation there are pictures documenting what happens otherwise...

Maybe for very large varieties . I don’t have experience with those .

I’ve dug up and dig around several old bamboo bushes and once you get deeper than about 20 cm or at most 30 you stop finding rhizome roots . Maybe some tap roots go down several meters but they are non vegetative .

I agree that an edge of the barrier must remain visible above the surface as sometimes rhizomes will actually grow above the surface . Also it is good practice to always clear away leaves and things so they can’t hide . It is good practice to occasionally inspect the surface. visually and snip away anything that is trying to grow over it

The barriers I used didn’t have metal rods but the seams were glued with special glue and had considerable overlap .

12 m2 is not a huge area to clear. An axe, shovel, a hand saw, and muscles should do the trick. If there is easy access for a digger, then sure, why not. Just be sure you know where the drains are before you dig.

I agree that a bit of muscle work combined with a smart approach should fix the problem.

But you need to be super careful because sometimes even small fragments left in the soil can grow back. So the goal should be to take it out in large pieces rather than hacking it up wildly in the soil .

Indeed I was shocked to see new growth from a tiny piece of root left in the soil.

Otherwise I have managed to dig up a significant amount. I have also used vinegar and boiling water to kill new growth.

Unfortunately what I cannot do is stop what is coming across from the neighbours. They had someone cut down the shoots. Waste of money. Would have been a feast for the pandas at the zoo! Months of legal correspondence and we are getting nowhere so our lawyer has started court proceedings.

Wow, what a menace those bamboos are once they take hold. A friend of ours had to pay 14.000 to get rid of his they were growing into the foundations of his 18C house.

We once went to visit a bamboo forest in Maui, and the trees were about 30 m tall and about 50cm wide! Also stayed in a Hôtel once in Zanzibar where the whole central structure was made of bamboo the size of above. Given the right condition....

There is a garden at an old house near us, which seems to be empty, and the whole garden has been taken over by very large bamboo- about 15cm thick and 15 m tall. Scary!


All fingers crossed.

I once spent three days digging out bamboo with a pick-axe from an area of roughly 1x1m WITHIN an anti-rhyzome barrier in my back garden in London. And if I'd left it another year it would have gotten through that barrier. Nature ...uh... finds a way!

How deep was the barrier? What was the material?

We are in an ongoing legal dispute with our neighbour. We have had several gardeners look at the situation and the barrier they proposed was 90 cm deep. While we know it is not a 100% guarantee it seems like the best option to stop the neighbour's bamboo roots from continuing to cross onto our land.

If the neighbour wants bamboo she can have it, we just don't want it on our property.