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Beware letting bamboo be

Seasoned Maple Ridge - Pitt Meadows landscaper warns would be planters about invasive species
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Digging up an overgrown bamboo patch is no easy feat. (Special to The News)

Dennis Chambers of Den’s Gardening and Landscaping warns new home buyers to look out for large bamboo stands when they’re shopping for a new house.

“Since the pandemic, people have been buying houses without doing home inspections, so they take over a property without knowing what’s there,” he said

The landscaper, who has been plying his trade in Maple Ridge - Pitt Meadows for 40 years said he as seen eight instances in the last year where people have bamboo stands which have not been managed properly.

“If you don’t contain it like it’s supposed to be contained, the plant takes over.”

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Chambers described a recent case in Pitt Meadows.

“It looks like somebody planted bamboo three-or-four years ago, and said they were going to contain it, but all they did was put plastic lawn edging in,” he said.

The cheap alternative comes with a high price tag, when a stand easily escapes its enclosure. The pesky grass has riser roots, which it sends out from the clump by the second or third year. They go up over the surface, and then dive back down again.

Chambers said bamboo can grow down to three feet deep, and will relentlessly look for new places to sprout.

“This bamboo stand has probably gone forty to fifty feet from the original clump,” he said of the Pitt Meadows stand.

Once its established, the plant is quite difficult to remove.

“It has to be all dug out,” Chambers said. “You cant spray it any more because of environmental rules with pesticide application.”


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