Questions about bamboo

[Chsguy88]

Just paid 3 bucks for a small, maybe 4-6 inch piece of bamboo at petco yesterday..... Just remembered there's a ****ton of wild bamboo growing behind my dry cleaner, and also in my friends yard.

Is there a way I can go crazy with the garden sheers on the bamboo behind the dry cleaner, different heights and thicknesses, and save the 50$ i'd be paying petco for it???

 

[aqua_chem]

I don't think bamboo grows wild in the states, so it's either not the right kind of bamboo, or someone's growing it there.

Make sure the bamboo isn't completely submerged or it will die.

 

[aquandrew]

the "bamboo" at petco isnt really bamboo at all its part of the dracaena family which is a type of lily so what your seeing in your back yard is definitely not bamboo

 

[Fresh2o]

There is no guarantee that the bamboo you harvest is the same as the Petco type (I looked it up and the American Bamboo Society lists more than 490 species, subspecies, varieties and cultivars in North America). It may or may not thrive.

Bamboo is highly invasive. At the previous home I lived at the neighbor had bamboo and it started growing into my yard. I took a witch ditch (think roto tiller on steroids) and sliced it up but it came back. I had a company dig out about 24" of soil and roots from the side yard and we buried sheet metal 18" deep at the fence line. Within a year or two it had made it past the barrier and ~10' into the property. Fortunately we put it on the market, sold it and got the house we wanted.

 

[aqua_chem]

I stand corrected, although of the 490 listed species, only a handful (three I think) are US natives. But as already stated, it's almost assuredly not aquatic/semi-aquatic.

 

[Chsguy88]

Thanks for all the responses! Yeah, did a little more research myself and found the information aquandrew said.

Petco had the "lucky bamboo" and it defiantly is different than the wild, invasive species, bamboo we have.... Should have known it was too good to be true!

I went and cut down some anyways, so I guess I'll dry it out and use it somewhere else as decoration around the house.... Or just take pride in killing the invasive species in which it is!

Thanks again