Battle of Bamboo Hill

JeffL

Member
I have a overly well established stand of bamboo that is all inter-twined with good trees and somewhat rugged terrain. Needs serious cutting back on a regular basis. stalks can be over 2" in diameter and 20' high.

I have done it before with chainsaw, echo trimmer with saw-blade, smashing it down with front end loader and backhoe, and a 20" residential mower that i cut the front out of exposing about 1/2 inch of the blade. believe it or not the 20" mower was the best so far, until it blew up because the terrain is a little too rough for the engine oiling system and having blade connect directly to the motor with no ability to slip.

looking for some ideas. i thought about trying a ratchet rake on the front end loader.

or maybe trying to find a mower deck of some kind that i can cut the front out and expose an inch of the blade but drive it with pulleys or PTO with slip clutch. i have walk-behind tractors that can run a deck with pulleys or small PTO shaft.

thought i would look for advice before i go crazy buying and/or modifying things.
 
Here is a photo of the 20" mower i used. it was really a test not a permanent solution so i wasn't upset or surprised when it blew up.
a114987.jpg
 
I have a very old mower that has a big disk sort of thing on it and that disk has 3 or 4 sickle mower sections rivets on it. It is set up like that mower you have in the picture. Bet it would do the job well. It has an old Clinton engine on it so that you know makes it for sure old.
 

If you have walk-behind tractorish things, fabbing up a belt-drive deck. Often easiest to find with a non-running lawn tractor someone wants to be rid of - the decks without a non-running lawn tractor attached are usually a lot more beaten up, but you might find an oddball.

Or find/fab a belt-dive bicycle-rear-wheel nicely balanced mower. The setup where the engine is behind the wheels balancing the deck in front of them is nicely maneuverable with minimal weight on the front casters.

or just get another cheap/free pushmower. Paint the high rocks white so you miss them the next time.

Possibly modify with shortening the blade and putting "swinging tips" on - hinged to the core so there is some give when a solid object is encountered.

Or go where that's heading: an actual flail mower. Unfortunately less common and tending to expensive.

Being much more at the northern edge of ability to grow the stuff, my bamboo is quite easily kept in check by mowing right about now as the new shoots come up. If it were in more difficult terrain a machete or bush-axe might suit, especially when the new growth is still just tender shoots. Waiting until it gets old and hard yields poles (more like sticks here), but makes cutting it more of chore.
 
I'm no help, but over on another forum, folks are discussing bamboo, and if they should start planting it. Kind of a smaat your sdvice would be on introducing such a plant to one's home? :)

To me it sounds like another kudzu, but some folk are all gung-ho as to how wonderful it is.

--->Paul
 
Google Mozall mowers. I don't know if they are still around but they were a great mower for tall stuff.
 

Years ago, a neighbor who was a big fisherman planted bamboo in his yard. Dug a short ditch between us to keep the bamboo away, didn't work. Later he cut all the bamboo down and would go over the small patch and knock off the sprouts, later mowed over it. I own that property now and there is still no bamboo there. Don't think bamboo, if cut off, would survive grazing by cows.

KEH
 
What about spraying every 3 or so weeks with herbicide ( 2-4D, roundup, banvel, cimeron, etc.) to actually get rid of it? One of the 25 gal tanks on a four wheeler or other utility vehicle with a pump and hose. It will likely take several spraying a to get ahead of it but beats mowing it forever.
 
Old,when i was real young, a friend was mowing with one of those mowers and one of the sickels came off and hit his left foot and they had to take his foot off. Those where dangerous mowers,thats where they got the idea for the new type hay mower. R.E.Lee
 
Ya but back then many things would be called dangerous but they still had them any how but then now days common sense is not near what it was back then either. That said have you ever seen what happen if you break a brush hog blade and it flies??? Well lets just say I guess I got lucky since all it hurt was the brush hog could not be used till the blade was replaced. Still after 10 plus year have not found that blade
 
By the way if you where closer to me I would help you out by coming and digging some of it up. I would love to have some winter hardy bamboo on my place
 

Trust me, old, you don't want bamboo. There ar quite a few places around here where the previous generations set out a small patch of bamboo to have fishing poles and now it's a big patch. Somebody did along a stream in a bottom in the mountain town of Tryon, NC, and the stuff has spread along the banks. Daughter and SIL bought a new house in Charleston, SC, and somebody bought the house next door and planted bamboo. Before daughter moved they were fighting bamboo spreading over the line. Of course, Charleston is subtropical, but Tryon's not. Bamboo is not as big a pest as Kudzu, but it's up there.

KEH
 
Reason I want it is to stop a creek from eating my land and yes I know it grows up fast and all and want it down on the creek banks.
 
thanks for all the great advice. I will be working on it some this weekend and will post what i try and how it works out to help people decide if they want to go down the bamboo road. I love it for privacy and noise reduction and missed it for the couple months it was real thin last time i cut it back.

i will try to get pictures posted too.

i have a rotary cutter i will try but thinking that the blade is too far from front of deck, but maybe if i wheelie it (it's an old kut kwick which has actually got a place to wheelie it with your foot).

i also saw a youtube video of someone using an old gavely L8 like i have and i think when you remove the front of the 30" deck the blade might stick out enough (i don't have that deck but can look for one).

I also bought a ratchet rake and will see what that does, decided to get it even if it doesn't work good on the bamboo I have lots of rough land to smooth out.
 
I have had really good luck with a DR Field and Brush Mower. I got it with the house for cheap, so I didn't really care if it broke. It cuts through 2" stuff pretty easily and grinds it down to the ground.

It will give you a workout though.

I think you can rent them at home centers.

By the way, I also got a snow blower attachment for it and it works great too.
 
Somebody educate me, please. There are a bunch of different varieties of bamboo. Some are not so intrusive. In the mountains of WNC there are lots of patches that seem to be well controlled. Others growing right to the edge of the highway.

Kudzu, if growing where goats can get to it, can be a great source of feed. But, if it gets over the fence you can't run fast enough to keep it down in the summer.
 
There are at LEAST 3 general categories (and many, many individual species):

Japanese knotweed, which is not bamboo, but is often incorrectly referred to as bamboo. Japanese knotweed is the worst - it keeps coming back. People growing the next two get tired of the incorrect name-calling and badmouthing of actual bamboo based on it.

Running bamboo (a slow walk at best, but as distinct from the next) which is true bamboo that is rather easily kept in check with a mower, through root barriers are a good idea if it's on a property line. Not putting it on a property line is easier. Mow around it a couple of times in the spring, or give it a water boundary, and it stops cold. There is only one time a year it produces shoots, if you cut off the ones you don't want, that's it until next year. It can throw out roots for some distance (thus, running), so a wide mowable buffer zone is the best containment.

Clumping bamboo - tends to be smaller or less hardy (I have seen some large versions but they were in distinctly tropical locales - the hardy ones are all small, as far as I know and for my locale of "hardy") grows in a clump, which expands very slowly.

I grow a running bamboo, which is probably Phyllostachys bissetii (or something close to that - it was obtained as a split from some that was managing to survive in the area, and that's about as close as I can guess at a species based on appearance and surviving here) - in over 10 years, it's barely managed to run 10 feet. Your mileage may vary further south or with more sun than this patch gets.

There is a lot of bamboo info on the web if you look for it.
 
I am in the hill country just outside of Austin Texas, most of the bamboo grows in a riparian zone. The bamboo came with the property and was planted in the 80s. it is bounded on one side by the road (but I need to cut it back away from the road). It is bounded on another side by a creek and does not jump across. The other side is the neighbors property and it has taken over completely there, luckily stopped by their driveway. and on another side it is bounded mostly by my driveway but i need to cut it back away from the driveway and in the 40 or so feet the driveway doesn't touch. overall the stand is shaped kind of like a triangle about 200 feet each side. the shoots mostly come up from february to june and in one week can reach 20 feet high and 2 inches around. if i had the time to mow every week i think it would stay contained. in the areas that I ran over lightly with my backhoe mowing tends to be easier, hopefully i can do more of that, it snaps most of the runners and the stalks tend to be smaller and more spread out. I might also try the trench method some day but it will be hard to not hit roots i do want to keep for large trees. until i find a better containment technique I am stuck looking for something that can cut the big stuff at least a couple times a year.
 
I was actually looking for ideas to control my bamboo, but mainly how to do it faster.

I know you said your plot of the stuff is 200ft on a side, so that may be too big for my methods. The best way to cut the stuff is a Sawsall with an "extra sharp" pruning blade. They make them in 5-6" and 9-10" versions. The longer ones seem to work a bit better, but the tang breaks off the blade more and they're more expensive. But, you can just sit on the ground and cut the canes off flush with the dirt--the stalk doesn't wobble or chatter like it does with a chainsaw.

I put a big cable flat on the ground and cut the stuff off in a 10-20ft stretch, so that it all falls toward the cable. Then loop it over, put in a quick link and use a tractor to pull it out. It will burn super fast, either green or dry--it makes a ton of noise though--like small explosions. I'm within town limits and am not supposed to burn brush, so I drive over it with my tractor a bunch of times to pop all the shoots. Then it burns so fast it's gone before anyone could notice.

After that I run over the top with a box blade and rippers part way down. With the canes cut flat to the ground, the rippers just pull the "stumps" up. You have to go across in different directions to get them all loose. After that, I bushhog every so often or use a small brush cutter (with a heavy nylon string on it) to cut the small shoots. Also spray the small stuff with Roundup.

I was wondering what anyone thought about using a sickle mower for it. I have one available, but don't want to just break it. I think the main concern I have is that the large canes are big enough, and slippery, that they wouldn't get cut and the sickle mower would take too much sideways stress because it'd just be sortof pushing the stuff over.
 

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