Gregs Bamboo

Wow it’s May 18th already…. Still no new signs of rhizomes emerging from the ground. It makes me wonder if I haven’t been watering the bamboo enough ?

The Rhizomes came early this year. Late April… 

Finally, I’ve got the sprinkler system and grass in now. It took a couple years to get this far… mainly because money and I’ve done most of the work myself.

2004 was a fun year for the backyard bamboo project. Still no grass yet and my underground sprinkler system is still a pipe dream. It’s July now and to late for that project as the heat is un full effect and the ground is as hard as a rock. Oh well, I can deal with no grass for a couple more months.

Looks like the grass is going to have to wait until Spring 2005.

– G

After I finally removed the God for saken apple trees out of the backyard, I managed to flatten the whole thing out. The whole endeavor took about 3 months. All of the rocks you see in the picture to the upper right I pulled out of the back, one at a time. In retrospect it was a very humbling experience.

In the August 2003 picture above, you can see the height of the plants I purchased. Each one was already about 15ft tall. Starting from the right going to left it’s Timber Bamboo, Bamboo Sweetshoot, Timber, Sweetshoot then Timber Bamboo again on the left. To save space I decided for moving our garden and trellising the fruits and vegetables over near the garage.
As you may have guessed controling the speading was a major concern of mine. Mentioning bamboo in a gathering of any size is nearly certain to prompt hysterical cursing from someone who has experienced an attack from the demonic plant that invaded unexpectedly and ceaselessly, and count not be stopped or killed. Such fear and venom is primarily directed at bamboos with a diffuse growth habit.

In the Spring of 2002 I started a mission in my backyard. The mission was to replace the old run down forgoten hedge and apple trees with a new lush enviroment. No more summers with apples and hornets dominating my lawn. Little did I know I wasn’t going to have a lawn for another 3 years… The rotting apple trees had to be torn out a long with an old clothes line system that was burried in concrete 3 feet deep in the ground. The hardest part about the whole thing was the apple tree with 2′ diameter. After I cut the tree down and hauled off the trimmings I planned an attack on the trunk. It was an all out war. In order to remove the trunk of the apple tree from my backyard I had to rent a back hoe and dig around the entire thing…