Let the hate RUN through you! GROW OR DIE: amzn.to/40YJDGz Compost Your Enemies t-shirts: www.aardvarktees.com/products/compost-your-enemies David's gardening blog: www.thesurvivalgardener.com
No! Not potatoes!!!! 😂😂😂😂😂😂 Beautiful variety you have. Love it. Love bamboo period. Pick where you plant it, as well as consider which variety. I have all running bamboo and contained them in a raised 2' high bed. Water, too dry or too compacted soils are among the best ways to contain bamboo. (Will transplant mine to pasture later.) The leaves are about 16% protein, they can be a problem for those in the horse family and cause laminitis/foundering. You need to let the bamboo culms get about 6-7 years old before using for building. That's when they have optimal silica. Older bamboo's higher silica content makes a superior biochar. The silica dulls knives faster than wood, so avoid buying bamboo cutting boards. All of mine are easy to prepare for cooking. Bamboo is considered aggressive instead of invasive. This is because all the plants of a variety die within a few years of each other and reseeding is minimal, though they are long lived. Thank you for bringing awareness to this wonderful plant. ❤❤❤🪴
Ooooooookay lmao. Live in Virginia and my first thought was "bamboo but more than likely comfrey". I have a guy that's trying to get rid of his. I'm like, "gimme some." He's all "he'll naw that stuff will spread everywhere man!" Like dawg, it won't spread past the woodline, and you just need to figure out the height and that's how far away the ribosome will spread. Eezy peezy!
Is the first variety the one you will be selling from your nursery? My buddy has running shoots poking out of his lawn, he said i can dig them up. Gonna try keeping them alive in pots, until I get my homestead outside of California.
I grew up with a bamboo patch. My parents had sunk corrugated galvanized steel tubs in the ground and planted Golden bamboo in them. They were decorative, yeah, but they were also tent poles, pretend swords, lances for jousting, and a thousand other things. The shoots even made it into dinner from time to time.
There is actually a bamboo expert/nursery near you. It's called 'Boo for You' and it's in Pensacola. The man there is a good Christian man who knows his stuff. He might be good for a q and a video on bamboo for you and he might appreciate the attention. He was very helpful with me and told me how to spot the difference between running bamboo vs clumping. Have a blessed one, Mr The Good
Rule kf thumb. Distance of runner is equivalent to the max height of cultivar. Just knock the shoots down in the spring for three years will devistate an out of control bamboo. No equipment needed. No digging. Just knock them down before they leaf out. It exhausts the rhizomes.
I heard it's better to let them spend the energy to grow tall, but deny them the return on that growth by cutting as soon as you can to that max leafyness.
I've always appreciated bamboo, but I developed a new appreciation for it after watching a number of videos of people in SE Asia turning bamboo into all kinds of useful and beautiful items, from small tools up to full-sized houses. My friend has two kinds growing at her place -- they don't get huge, but do get to a useful size -- and we plan to dig some up eventually and move it over here.
You don't even need to dig it up. Cut one down, and each node (the lined rings on bamboo) can be cut off, and turned into its own plant. Transplanting them will take a decade to have any noticeable size to your bamboo garden. Look up ways to propegate bamboo. In 3 years I went from having a 15 stalk area, to a complete privacy fence in my back yard by only cutting down 3 bamboo to propegate.
@Kathleen Sanderson there are dozens of great videos on RU-vid as well. One method I like now is what I call pipe layering. (I know im not the first to do it, but i dont know what it's called lol.) I cut down a full stalk and rest it in water overnight. The next day, I lay out the bamboo where the branches lay out flat on the ground as the bamboo branches would always shoot off the node opposite of each other. I then use a good drill bit (3/4" WoodOwl Overdrive... it makes clean holes that look like they've been made on a machine lol.) And I drill holes in the middle of the internodes. I then fill the internodes with water and hammer in a 3/4" wood plug. This will trap the water inside the node. Now, I can bury an entire bamboo next to a fence, a property line, or my favorite, a pathway. So in about 2 years, as the shoots start to grow-die, grow-die, they grow a bit bigger each time. And around the 7th to 10th cycle (2 to 5 cycles a year) you get a line of bamboo growing in a straight line from the ground. It looks so awesome when done on both sides if a path. If you need it curved, you can bend the bamboo while it's still alive before cutting it. Basically, I bend the bamboo over bit by bit until I can tie a rope around the top portion. I then pull it down until I can fasten it to a yard spike (it's a curly-q steel spike you screw into the ground.) And after a few months l, you can detach the rope, and the bamboo will stay that shape. Now, I can do the same pipe method, but with a 90 degree bend. I made a circular area to go around my small fire pit. But it's still in the early stages. *** I apologize for the novella... I just really love bamboo. Ever since I was a child. It's honestly the perfect plant for our planet. It grows super fast, it's way stronger than wood, it grows extremely fast, and it cleans about 30% more carbon from the air than trees (per acre). ***
@@carterscustomrods That's a really cool idea -- thank you! We have a spot where we want to make a bamboo privacy hedge, and your method would be perfect for that! And I love bamboo, too. (I also love pretty much all trees -- my college major was forestry.) I love the way it looks, and I love how useful it is without having to go through all of the steps you often have to take to make tree wood into something.
Bamboo is particularly excellent for making parallel strand lumber, which in turn is strong enough to make skyscrapers. It definitely grows faster than hardwood trees, on poorer soil to boot. Bamboo-based PSL is already available in East Asia and has seen some commercial success in China, but it's yet to catch on in Europe and North America. Keep an eye out though. I wager it'll become an investment opportunity sooner or later.
@Luke Fabis yeah the bamboo psl is awesome stuff, but it eats blades when cutting it. One cool, (but pricey and not as legal as it should be) is HempWood. It's beautiful and almost as strong as bamboo, but the cultivation and preparation are easier than bamboo to make boards... plus it looks amazing. Hopefully it gains popularity.
@@lizhallengren5127 Looked that up. So it's basically a section of bamboo that people put into their aquariums as some fish like to "hide" in the 'cave' the piece of bamboo gives (you leave the node wall intact). Takes a bit of time to sink on its own but that's the idea of the hides. Interesting.
I have a running type in my yard that spread from a neighbors property years ago. I let it take over once to see what it would look like. The biggest canes I got were only a little over an inch in size. The last few years I have tried to eliminate it by taking a mattock to them as they emerge. The roots seem to persist forever though and it keeps coming up every year. At this point I am bamboozled.
You have to dig it out, no other way. I had a patch of it in my suburban yard, planted by a previous owner. It took me I’d say five years to eradicate all of the bamboo. Those roots show up all over the place and if you leave any, it will grow back. However, once you get hold of a piece of root, you can pull it up kind of like a string.
I think you need to let them shoot up, and then chop them down before/just as they get leaves. That way they starve out over time as they cannot get the sweet-sweet energy from the sun.
@@MalawisLilleKanal That's pretty much what I have been doing for a couple of years. It doesn't help though that it continues to grow in the adjacent HOA undeveloped "Green Area".
I pulled out 140 ft stand of bamboo once. Took 6 months plus a couple years cleaning up the stray runners. I’d put it up there with Bermuda grass in the pestilence category, unless you have a lot of space to give it. I did get a nice boon of stakes and partly decomposed organic material as it had probably been there for decades. But not a good choice where space is a premium.
Bamboo is great in large compost piles as it provides air. I made fencing and every year I would replace the fencing and compost the old poles. Weaved into chicken wire it’s predator proof and chicken wire is cheap. I never had it on my property but the block across the street was infested with it. I offered to remove it for free.
Oh yuck no! Not in town! I have some runners that passed under the neighbor’s fence and are now something I have to pull over to my side and trim as it reached the power lines. Also became a popular jump off point for rats running the electric lines. Additionally, their runners take up valuable land that makes it very hard to plant anything else. Constantly running into the runners. An inherited nightmare.
Not only has David the Good helped me overcome my fear of grafting, but also has dashed my misconceptions on bamboo and it's spread. It was the BamBEATS that truly drove it home. Thank you, David the Good!
I built a bamboo trellis for my cukes. Added lots of compost to the clayey soil. Compost with Grazon-contaminated hay. Turned out I didn't need a trellis. I returned that part of the yard to lawn. As of the time I sold the place, no weeds.
You have the good kind you can build with. I have the crappy kind, as well as english ivy and himalayan blackberry that makes doing anything in the yard a constant war. Which is fine, I like warring against nature and it is green manure after it goes through the chipper. and at least you can make blackberry pie. In Georgia I've seen people's yards with bamboo that grows almost 6 inches in diameter - now THAT bamboo I would love to grow.
Super cool, love your soldier attitude. People like you helped me start enjoying the process of fighting weeds, wheras before it was the most depressing task in the world.
I have TONS of bamboo and you've given me a new outlook! Do you have any videos of putting the bamboo on your coop? I think this would be a good start for me but I know it cracks super easy!!
Bamboo huh,🤯 unexpected, rnr I've been waiting for it all My life haha.., My wife and I have been following you for years and I've told her for a while now that you had to get to it soon bc you've covered pretty much everything ..and then some!😂 Thanks btw haha.. just got my "Compost your Enemies" sticker in the mail yesterday thank you sir🫱 Hope you've Trademarked it🤔 I have a small group of like minded folk saying/using it😂 appreciate the content and attempt at comedy 😢 just kidding all love brother!!
When people tell me they hate bamboo I quit taking them seriously. If you hate bamboo you should go live on another planet. The only bad thing I can say about bamboo is it won't grow in Alaska. Its the most useful plant ever , its edible and beautiful. If you really want to get rid of it its not even that hard it just requires stepping away from your Tv once or twice a season and mowing it down. When someone tells me they can't control bamboo they are telling me they never go outside . There is also a native American bamboo that is much needing areas to be replanted in it. We had bamboo forests in North America pre Columbus. As far as pipes, etc mature bamboo has cyanide and you really have to be careful about using it to burn in or for food containers unless treated. Seriously though anyone who says its hard to eradicate is an amateur gardener at best. All you have to do is mow it for a few seasons and it runs out of sugars in the rhizomes. That's it. Done.
@@captainkim3643 Mature stalks have cyanide in them. Its a fairly common organic compound found in a wide range of plants. I believe there is some way to treat pipes prior to smoking. I was making bongs out of bamboo in Hawaii and an old hippie told me about it.
Well said. You can literally just pay attention and kick down new shoots once or twice in the spring with 10 minutes of total labor. It's bizarre how terrified people are of this incredible grass.
I have a patch of bamboo that my dad planted several years ago. It must be the clumping kind, but it's a lot bigger than your little patch. Not as big as the other kind, though. I have just started cutting some of it this spring to use for all sorts of things.
My brother has a neighbor down the street who has massive bamboo. It grows 2-3" in diameter. Like most people who have bamboo, he's told my brother to cut all he wants.
We must be on the same wavelength. I planted comfrey two days before you did your comfrey series. I planted running bamboo last week. Should I tell you what I planted today so you can make your next video? Or do you already know? :) Loving the content.
Hahaha. I just got some rhizomes from a buddy to get started at the house for wind block and goat fodder. So far my buddy, parents, sister, 2 other friends, and no less than 4 or 5 folks from work have told me im essentially calling up the devil and cursing my land to be doomed forever. Hahaha. Perfect timing on this video Mr. Good. Guess i should have told em "at least its not comfrey" 😂 If you plan to sell any of your bamboo id sure be interested. Preferably running type
Thanks, I enjoyed this. In case this isn't posted several times already: the young shoots from runners are edible raw and are supposed to have the best taste ( and you can cook them.) I believe you can cook and eat the young shoots from clumping bamboo, but do your research - it may not be worth the effort. In a town in North Florida, there was a home where the owner let runner bamboo (golden bamboo) take over their yard - I thought this was so cool! It was a half-shade area, and the owner never had to mow - the lack of sunlight + the bamboo kept other plants out. I suspect it also deterred intruders. In this same town in another area there was a small clump of huge bamboo - about 30 feet tall! I have a small runner bamboo, unknown species. Someone was throwing it away, so I rescued it - and planted it next to my driveway by by planting the pot in the ground. Two years later, I see a shoot coming up 15 feet away! It's food for my rabbits and me - or I might take up basket weaving?
I've got running bamboo and goats.... I have zero trouble with it escaping or getting out of control here. I actually have to protect it so I can get new production!
Bamboo is awesome if you can control it. I think it was Paul James, the gardener guy, that said years ago, to dig a trench and line it with galvanized metal panels to keep the runners contained from growing underneath and spreading.
Im in southern Ontario Canada and love my bamboo. I have a small patch i planted next to a concrete sistern. It's easy enough to keep the runners under control. I cut them off and plant into large pots to sell. It shades my patio and the feet of my wisteria. It grows around 14' high, but unfortunately only an inch wide. My pet birds love it. The leaves stay green all winter.
I’m reading Gaia’s Garden right now and the author loves it as much as you and I do. It’s not possible to have enough; it’s so useful! And you can eat the new shoots, which helps keep it under control, if you must.
Hi David, I have very mixed feelings about this. We have a Landplot with really huge running bamboo, which came over from the neighbours bamboo forest. It is slowly climbing up on mountain and wants to capture everything. It is impossible to dig a barrier around it. However I also appreciate all the points you mentioned. My biggest problem is treat me on the bamboo to make it last. I watched a few of This bamboo treatment videos, running water, heating, borax, et cetera. It is very cumbersome and needs space of time. It’s not at all that you can just cut it off and use it as building material. This year I’m cutting some of these all the trees and I am drying them on a metal rag without direct connections to the ground. I hope that this will void the damage to them and and make some of them actually last longer.. let’s see. The new bambus should I’m taking out as good as I can. They are many, they are fast and the come in camouflage. But yes they’re beautiful and they can be super useful.
The Borax soak method is likely the easiest. Some shade, some water, and a tarp/small pool. I've never done well with solar curing it here in Florida. The bugs get to it quickly, and the bamboo splits quickly.
My bamboo really took off this year! I love it. The leaves are so beautiful, and the way it sways in the wind is so calming. I give new shoots to a woman from Laos. Her mother prepares them for the family to eat. I have planted it to help with soil erosion in spots on my property and it looks great!
Bamboo is super useful but it’s considered invasive. I have a half acre patch of English Ivy my neighbor and I share that I have to get rid of. Don’t want to deal with another lol. I love perilla as a fresh herb to eat with food and it is on TN’s list of invasive herbs so I only grow it in containers. We’re trying to follow Doug Tallamy’s conservation efforts and supporting the local fauna with native flora. Bamboo would make excellent building material though.
Bro, I wish perilla would invade my yard! How bout states actually pluck and sell stuff like that instead of labeling an invasive? It's like finding a bunch of money growing in the woods.
@@GoldenBoy-et6of it covers up the ground and chokes out nice native plants. Also loves to climb trees and choke them out and is a pain to keep after. A million other better things to plant.
Would it grow well in my North Florida sandy yard? I've been wanting some clumping bamboo, but I don't want to have to amend the soil. If it can just be stuck in the sand and it'll grow, that would be a plus for me ;)
I'm dying to find some raw land here in my area so I can grow a bunch of lots of different bamboo. I will definitely cut a big ditch around the lot where I grow it. I too can come up with use after use after use for it... and I can build with it too. Much Love David The Good 👍
@@mindofmadness5593 I would cut at least 4ft - 6ft depth and width. Minimum. More for certain types of bamboo. Some bamboo doesn't play about running and it can get big. Depends in the type planted.
If I have bamboo... I have plumbing, vent pipes, structural members for my yurt, AND FOOD! And yes, a running bamboo can be as big a pain to control as the Blackberry. The secret is to keep cutting them down until the roots have depleted ALL their food reserves, and then expire.
I LOVE my running bamboo patch! It is beautiful, especially listening to the wind go through it. I need to look at how to build with it and make more use of it besides just using it to stake my beans, squash and tomatoes.
Love bamboo! I have running bamboo in large pots and clumping bamboo in the ground. So many uses in the garden. I am finding that shedding bamboo into mulch is better than pine shavings for my chickens.
Just started digging my running bamboo out. Find it kills everything around it. It’s now sent runners over 300 square meters. We have some huge clumping bamboo also. So we are happy with that.
Apparently the soil microbiome around bamboo is particularly diverse and fertile. I was told to take some of the soil around my bamboo to help soils that are depleted. Hemp is also a great natural soil conditioner. I think I will research this further...
Native plants do the same thing and actually fit in the ecosystem because they were evolved to be here. Introduced species don't work with the system, and that's why you see the floor inside the bamboo patch so barren compared to in a bit of forest. If you want to heal soil, there are plenty of plants like Little Bluestem, Switch Grass, Echinacea, which do exactly that. Willow grows fast and can be coppiced to provide straight whips for building with. The list is endless, really, just a matter of knowing what native plants do what.
You can also eat bamboo shoots. Before they form a hard woody texture, you can take the tender parts of the shoots, boil them, and then use them like any other vegetable.
I've recently delved into making biochar with my bamboo. It's great, because it produces so much biomass, and it needs to be thinned yearly. You end up with a big stack of canes and a big pile of branches and leaves, and you keep getting more every year. What a great opportunity to get out the burn barrel and make biochar!
I love bamboo. We make all kinds of things with it! I also love that I don't have any on my property!! I just go to my friends bamboo overgrown yard and get it any time I want. I'm getting ready to go get some shoots for Asian dishes.
I have heard of people growing bamboo in poured concrete foundations, to stop them running, but have a row of any variety of their choosing. That would be an undertaking, and I ponder cheap and effective alternatives to that concept. Underground bamboo walls.
I have used bamboo for curtain rods. We took a dog chain link dog kennel and made a grid on top of bamboo held down with zip ties and then wrapped the top and bottom in chicken wire. So far we are predatore free and enjoying lots of eggs. I have also spent a few hours digging bamboo roots out of my flower and herb garden because they were the running kind and I was tired of tripping over cut off stumps. I have also used bamboo in grow bags to keep the sides from folding in on my plants when I didn't fill them with soil all the way to the top.
I have a small bamboo tree growing in an old washtub. Just luv it! Have lived in this area most of my life & had no idea it grows here! I use the stalks as tomato & plant supports. 😊
From my 20 plus year experience with yellow groove bamboo, here in zone 6, I control the spread with dewitt weed barrier. It just doesn't come up thru it at all. All I started with was 1 5 gallon pot, I planted to hide my junky neighbor. It worked, you wouldn't even know they even exist anymore. Birds just love the bamboo for nesting.
People get all weird about it, but I find it reasonable to deal with. Cut it down where you don't like it a few years each spring and it's done. But I really like that it shades out a bunch of weeds on my property. Great neighbor shield and insta-sword for the kids among all the other things.
We live in SE Arizona in the high desert and would never have considered bamboo here, but it turns out there is a huge bamboo nursery near us in Tucson! We are gonna check it out and are pretty excited about the possibilities :) Thanks for sharing this video!
I found lots of people plant the wrong bamboo clumping and running. It helps to visit and see exactly what you are buying instead of just buying a pot of bamboo.
I always loved bamboo. If someone gets hurt dies anything happens it can take over and become a problem. But in places where fencing isn’t possible like a narrow roadside bank right above a home or yard these are great. Fun to throw into the fire green, great for projects, make nice fires and furniture
I made an A-frame chicken coop from bamboo we harvested from a thicket nearby. Not as cool as yours though. Come check it out we are in south Alabama too!
There are many different kinds of bamboo. The black bamboo is quite cool as it doesn't lose its color. So many uses! Good Vids... get it? If you use that I get a cut... ha!
I would love to have a stand of giant bamboo and a clump of moderate size bamboo. It's so useful for almost any building and you can have a fishing pole by just adding fishing line and a hook
I have bamboo. Let me tell you about an experience that I had. Mine was here when I bought this property. I live in the country on 2 1/4 acres and the bamboo is on the line. My young neighbor chose to burn leaves on a windy day, not in a barrel, but just on the ground. It got out of hand and the firemen had to dump an entire truck of water as it was
There was a variety of bamboo native to North America along the Mississippi River around Tennessee and Kentucky called the bamboo marshes but it’s all gone now .
@@quailjailss Indeed. It’s everywhere. I can imagine what it would have looked like 300 years ago with natives using the bamboo and thickets up and down the rivers here. It’s on the sides of our highways as well.
Switchcane still exists, but the formerly massive "canebrakes" were mostly converted to farmland. The animals that used to depend on it are more threatened (habitat destruction/fragmentation) than the plants themselves.
Bamboo is an extremely beautiful and useful plant. People only think its invasive because they plant running types od bamboo. The clumpibg types are tge way to go for them. They stay in neat little bushes and grow up tall
David, I have waited years to see you say something about bamboo. I have Robert Young in a corner of our property. It took 10 years before it really started to grow. The rabbits eat almost every shoot that comes up. I planted 9 different varieties 12 years ago. Only 6 of them have survived and only 4 are really thriving. I have used them to build trellises and parts of the chicken run. Still so much to learn about how to use it. Henon is my favorite; 60 feet tall and thriving on our back hillside.
Beautiful variety you have. Love it. Love bamboo period. Pick where you plant it, as well as consider which variety. I have all running bamboo and contained them in a raised 2' high bed. Water, too dry or too compacted soils are among the best ways to contain bamboo. (Will transplant mine to pasture later.) The leaves are about 16% protein, they can be a problem for those in the horse family and cause laminitis/foundering. You need to let the bamboo culms get about 6-7 years old before using for building. That's when they have optimal silica. Older bamboo's higher silica content makes a superior biochar. The silica dulls knives faster than wood, so avoid buying bamboo cutting boards. All of mine are easy to prepare for cooking. Bamboo is considered aggressive instead of invasive. This is because all the plants of a variety die within a few years of each other and reseeding is minimal, though they are long lived. Thank you for bringing awareness to this wonderful plant. ❤❤❤🪴
Bamboo is easy to control. Many varieties that grow tall and large diameter are clumping. Other varieties run but are not aggressive and can be controlled with rhizome blocker or building a trench around your bamboo. You should never have the bamboo running out of control like that given how easy it is to find information these days.
I love running bamboo. Mines been going for about a good 15 yrs or more. My wife hates it. It makes me happy. I love to see hundreds of new shoots come out at the same time.😂 Im also a gardener so it has many uses.
Nature's Always Right has a great interview with an old bamboo grower and homesteader, and one of the things he talks about is how to eradicate a stand if you want to. It's a multi year process where you just cut everything down, then wait for the spring flush to grow, and once it's reached its full height, you cut it down again. If you repeat that every year for a few years, you'll deplete the energy stored in the rhizomes and they'll die.
I love bamboo but my yard is too small to plant it. If I had more room I'd plant it. My grandparents had an acre and they had several patches of it, I love it. My grandpa always had to cut it back though cause it would have spread even more if he let it. It was in dense, dense patches cause he only let it grow in those areas, but I love how it is in this guy's yard. Just like a forest of bamboo.
The bamboo look stunning! I like the colour of that one! I've been trying to germinate Dendrocalamus strictus, but had no success, so far. The dropped leaves also make great mulch.
A split some Timber bamboo in half and made the most beautiful molding. And it happens to be the safest place in the world in case of an earthquake in a bamboo Grove
I love bamboo! I want it planted all around our property to protect my garden from killer winds and poison drift from the crop dusters that keep killing our plants. Long live bamboo!!!
I had a swimming pool I used to take care of and the entire backyard was filled with bamboo. you couldn't see the neighbors or his own house. It also blocked noise.
We love bamboo and had 5 varieties growing at our house in Boise, Idaho. We are down to 2 varieties strategically placed. The issue for us was after the 3rd year it started taking over my neighbors yards even though we installed a barrier that the nursery recommended. It’s so nice to have green bamboo growing in the winter when everything else is dead and I use any pruned bamboo in the garden. Bottom line is that even though it’s noxious it is beautiful and nearly impossible to kill. If I had a huge swath of land I’d give it another go. Our clumping variety of bamboo has been amazing and much more slow growing.
I love bamboo! I love wandering through the tall and lush bamboo forests on the Hawaiian islands. I planted several clumps of it in my forest garden in Oregon and it thrived. I was sad to leave it behind. The new owner loves it! I would love to grow it here in NW Arizona but I haven't tried it yet and it is probably too dry. I have some in a galvanized water trough but it's not growing much since we moved here.
I have the clumping kind you showed. Has to be over 30 years old. I started the second clump with just a piece. Shoved it in the ground and watered it a couple of times. I should sell some. 3 year old stalks are best.
