Posted on 06/18/2008 8:10:49 PM PDT by Vigilanteman
The neighbors who are divided over a growth of bamboo at a Mt. Pleasant residence came face to face Tuesday night, and neither side appeared to blink.
A hearing convened by an appeals board of the Central Westmoreland Council of Government heard from Myra Posner, who has grown bamboo in her yard for the past 22 years, and her next-door neighbors, Tara Greenawalt and Dan Gelzheiser, who say the bamboo has invaded their yard and is a nuisance.
Defining bamboo as a grass which cannot exceed 10 inches seems to be a serious overreach by the ne
(Excerpt) Read more at pittsburghlive.com ...
It appears she values the serene privacy a living bamboo fence affords and the whining neighbors think they are entitled to a view on all four sides.
Trying to define bamboo as a grass which must be under 10 inches seems to be a serious overstretch by the neighborhood nazis.
For those unfamiliar with exurban Pittsburgh, Mt. Pleasant is a fairly small town with big yards.
We've been after a stretch of it in our neighborhood for years. Folks have tried burning it out, poisoning it, cutting it down ~ you name it.
No one wants it, particularly not the guy whose fence is getting knocked over.
You control it by moving it down in the spring. It doesn’t continue to send up shoots throughout the spring and summer.
My family enjoys the bamboo we’ve planted in our back yard. It makes a wonderful privacy fence.
I not sure bamboo is a grass. Native North American sawgrass is a grass but I don’t know about bamboo.
These neighbors are also complaining about birds chirping? Sounds like a couple of ex-urbanites who don't know about life in the country.
Clumping bamboo is good and can be controlled. Regular bamboo is nothing but a huge pain in the a$$.
You need to experience bamboo before yiu judge the neighbors complaining abouot it - it’s a real pest.
Yup! A considerate neighbor would plant their bamboo in a container of some kind or a trench surrounding by concrete!!!
If you sided with the city or the neighbor that is complaining I'd file a complaint to have your posting priveldges taken away.
This is a case of a city staffer taking his job over the edge. I bet there are 1,000 other genuine violations he could have gone after but instead...
I'm judging. There are blooming jerks that need to move. Listen to yourself. They are even complaining about birds singing. As punishment for siding with the idiot neighbors you should be forced to live next door to them. Then come back here in six months to post the story about them complaining about you.
I read about a guy who tried to get rid of some bamboo every way possible to no avail. He finally brought in a backhoe to dig out every trace of it
The following spring he got got a few new bamboo shoots coming up. Think it was in Pennsylvania
Bamboo is grass..it is jointed like grass
“Bamboo is grass..it is jointed like grass”
grass...joint...
Hey! You might be on to something.
Yeah, I’ve been up too long.
Anyone who thinks you can “control” a running bamboo in the USA is delusional. I had a neighbor who planted it and the struggle to keep it from overtaking my rose garden, my fruit trees, my lawn in general became the bane of my existence. I finally dug up the roses and sold the house.
The neighbor is right, mowing it only leaves behind sharp stubs that will cut you to pieces (I’ve had them pierce the soles of my shoes). Then the bamboo regrows from each stub. Each plant sends out runners for 10 or 12 feet, with new plants at regular nodes along the runner. There are no natural enemies, no restraints, no disease - its like kudzo and japanese beetles - it should not be planted in a yard.
The runners will break through brick walls, concrete block walls, tear up driveways, damage house foundations. You can “contain” it in certain plastics, but those plastics are very expensive and even then you must be vigilent.
I only know one substance and one method of application that will kill it and that is also likely to kill any surrounding plant life.
In many states bamboo is listed as a noxious weed. In this case, I’m with the neighbor.
The fact that the neighbors are whining about birds chirping and not about bamboo growing through retaining walls, foundations or driveways indicates this is not the noxious variety here.
If the neighborhood nazis can make her cut down 30 year old bamboo due to birds chirping or other such trivial reasons, then they can make you cut down a prize oak tree because it is casting shade or dropping leaves in a neighboring yard.
It is a grass in the sense that, as you said, rice is, plus wheat, oats, millet and other food grains. But it is not designed to be cut to a specific length any more than are food grains.
Otherwise it's a pest.
It is also a food source when handles properly. It makes an outstanding privacy fence and great cover for wildlife. It performs well at controlling soil erosion and it is easy to control if you mow it down in the spring.
Even a “clumping” variety that age will have become a nuisance. There is such a “clump” down by the lake. Its making the wildlife management folks crazy as they can’t poison it and cutting it down neither intimidates or slows it for very long. Its no where nearly as noxious as the running variety, but still a pest. There are fresh shoots growing where they mowed it this spring - its nearly as dense as it was before the mowing.
No alien plant life or insect life is safely let loose in an environment where there are no natural controls.
I can’t imagine why one would complain over birds chirping either (I go to considerable effort to make sure they hang out around my house and chirp), but do not discount the fact that the bamboo could be a real hazard. As to the clanking against buildings....how long would you put up with a tree limb clanking against a window or the roof?
I was delighted when my neighbor first planted the bamboo - I’ve always loved how it looked. Living with it was an entirely different thing.
As a PS, the couple who bought my house joined by the neighbors on either side, sued over the bamboo and the court forced him to destroy it. At that point it had destroyed fences on three sides of his property as well as the fruit orchard and countless landscape plants. They had to take him back to court repeatedly, because the bamboo was so hard to eradicate.
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