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True story: Some years back, a newly married couple purchased a home in Silver Spring (that’s MD). They were so excited! She painted all the rooms and told her new husband how she always wanted a garden of sorts. She had already marked in a catalog azaleas, roses, hydrangea, lilacs.. and such. However, the previous owners had used bamboo as a privacy fence. “No problem”, he said, “you’ll have all the plants you want as soon as I get rid of this bamboo”.

Step 1: he cut the bamboo down to ground level and tried to dig it out. He figured bamboo is like any other plant.. remove the root, you remove the plant. Right? He worked from Friday evening to late Sunday evening and announced he was done. By the following Friday, young bamboo shoots were springing up! Thick, healthy shoots!

Step 2: Time for chemical help! He went to Home Depot and bought gallons.. yes, gallons.. of every chemical that would kill darn near anything. The trench has already been dug so he poured, and poured and poured. His wife was concerned the ground would be poisonous so he purchased dirt so he could dig out the “old, poisonous” dirt and replace it with new dirt. Another weekend went by and by Friday.. the shoots. This time, they were bigger, thicker and grew faster as if he had fertilized them.

Step 3: At this point, poor Rodney was near “committable” to a psychiatric institute. Curse words followed by the word BAMBOO were frequent. He would stare out the kitchen window.. just looking at his nemesis and grinding his teeth. His wife actually got worried about him. To help, she said she really didn’t like roses.. or hydrangea... or lilacs. It didn’t help
On Saturday, Rodney lost it. He went to the gas station, and purchased gas. He poured the gas into the trench and lit it on fire. Yes, he did! A row of flames! His wife swore he smiled while the bamboo burned. It was done, he thought. It’s dead.. or so he thought. The following Friday, sprouting up from the black ashes of the trench was bamboo sprouts. Thicker, greener and healthier than ever before! That Friday night as he polished off a six pack, he decided “bamboo is functional. It is pretty. It’s a great privacy hedge”. It remains there today.