Life in the jungle

If you feel like planting bamboo, here's a good reason to just stick to a lucky bamboo plant in an indoor vase. I've chopped off dozens of these new shoots that are popping up overnight like mushrooms 20 feet out into our lawn.

The bamboo "hedge" has entered its frightening 3-month growing season, and the rhizomes are spreading across the yard. I'm hacking them off as fast as I can.  If anything, this just encourages more growth. But the real fear is, what if they decide to head east across the back alley, and spring up on a neighbor's property? People are terrified of bamboo, and rightly so. Then John and I will have to pack up and move to Alaska under cover of darkness.

Bamboo is the worst thing we have ever planted, or hopefully will ever plant again on poor Mother Earth.  But like many innocent mistakes, it seemed like a good idea at the time and wow, it sure screened that ugly view of the neighbor's trailer. No, we didn't bother to install an underground "barrier" but from what I've learned, flimsy barriers are mostly useless for these varieties with giant culms that can punch through asphalt. 

Yes, you can get rid of it, you can get rid of anything in Seattle, but that can take years. And it requires bringing out the expensive professional bamboo removal company.  And maybe heavy equipment.  And possibly herbicide.

On a happier note, the gloomy weather that's been bugging us for days has finally moved into Idaho and Montana.  The warm sun is back, garden chores are calling today.