Little Yard of Horrors
OK, here’s one for my botanically knowledgeable friends — these things have sprouted up in my backyard. Now, things that I can’t identify growing in my yard is pretty much par for the course, but these are weird in that they seem way too random to be something the previous owners intentionally planted. There are 8 of them in the yard, four in each cluster, plus maybe a few more in the neighbor’s yard & in the common greenway behind the yard.
The tallest ones are approaching 7 feet, if they aren’t there already. And they did this in under three weeks, because I mowed over those spots before I left for CA. WTF, any ideas? It’s not bamboo is it? that would be cool, I just can’t imagine how bamboo started growing in my yard. Surely my floor boards aren’t breeding… I have this unsettling feeling like they must be some sort of radioactive alien species and this is the part of the movie where the audience is screaming at me to rip the devils out of the earth before they consume us all or something…
I’m no garden person, but that sure does look like bamboo to me!
whoa! that really does look like bamboo! cut it down and sell it. I’d like a few, please :)
I agree. It’s bamboo. I’ve heard that bamboo loves our summers and will spread like wildfire if it can. I would guess that it’s not something that the previous owners deliberately planted, but just some volunteers come from someone else’s yard. Does anyone in the neighborhood have a bamboo stand?
And, I wonder if you like it, how you can encourage a stand of your own.
Oh, yes, bamboo. It can grow on runners. Essentially, once you plant it, it is there forever and will spread everywhere. I love it personally and it was very popular in landscapes in the 40s and 50s, but a lot of people hate it because it’s non-native and invasive (like its buddy kudzu).
In Memphis, it was really popular in the above mentioned years which was when there was a major housing boom there. And the people who have it (still, which is a lot) cut it down and sell it to the zoo to feed the pandas. It works for everyone.
Oh, and it could always be worse. I had something that would sprout up out of nowhere that peppered my old yard. It look a bit like young crape myrtle, but wasn’t. It grew much faster than my yard, so every couple of days, every summer, I’d be out there for an hour or so cutting down these seedlings that popped up a foot high overnight. I hated that.
Hmmm… none of my ‘visible’ neighbors to the left or right have any bamboo other than the same random few stalks like mine, but I bet someone behind us on the other side of the greenway might. And there’s probably more growing in and around the greenway itself.
That’s cool, I do like the idea of growing some bamboo, it certainly feeds into my Asiatic and zen impulses :)
I’ll just have to figure out how to move them into a more attractive place & pattern. Growing it all along that back fence, sort of hiding the fence & making a wall before the greenway would be pretty spiffy I think.
Bamboo for sure. Like Lesley said, it’s technically considered invasive, so you’ve got yourself bamboo forever, like it or not. :)
You have bamboo from the Fargesia family, the most common cultivar being Murielae (google search to your heart’s content). This is an invasive bamboo that can send out runners and pop up hundreds of feet away from the main clump. It can run up to 4 feet deep underground and pop up anywhere. Good luck cutting, moving or re-grouping these. If you are tired of them or held hostage by them you can cut off the cane and paint the exposed end with Roundup. Once established this bamboo is nearly indestructible.
You can read more on the Garden Web forums under “Bamboo”.
It does look weird and alien when it comes up though.
Ha! I do sort of like my yard seems to have attracted bamboo that is apparently as ornery and stubborn as I am : )
Of course we’ll see if I’m still saying that after some time of dealing with it…