The Cane Wars
It first happened about 6 years ago and was announced by Roomie barging in through the front door shrieking at a frantic pitch only the dog could understand. As soon as she caught her breath she told me of the alien life forms in the side yard and insisted I do something about them NOW!
Knowing her predilection for exaggeration, especially when expressed in that ultrasonic voice, I topped off my morning coffee and strolled out to meet the aliens. Phasers set to stun. Rounding the corner of the house, I stopped dead in my tracks, spilling hot coffee on my bare feet. “What the hell is that?” Edging closer for a better view, I had almost decided Roomie was right this time. Who do we call - 911, the Air Force, maybe Billy Graham? But eyeing the life forms in their various sizes and maturities, it finally came to me through my morning haze that we were witnessing the first of what would become an annual event.
The little bamboo clump we had set out last summer to form a year-round privacy screen outside the dining room window was, for lack of a better term, spawning. The new shoots were everywhere, poking their weird little heads up from runners just under the surface, some as much as 20 feet from the “mother clump”. And do they grow fast! Bamboo even has its own website where I learned that David Farrelly in The Book of Bamboo, says “bamboo has been measured to grow 47.6 inches in a 24-hour period.” Damn! How do you control this stuff?
While the cane can be very beautiful and useful, it can also be a nuisance - think kudzu. Just ask our neighbors who join us in the cane wars every May for about four weeks. The little bastards sneak under the fence seeking life on the other side. Nothing seems to stop it. Chop it down - it comes right back. Douse it with herbicide - it mocks, smiles and keeps on going. Get aggressive with it and it just sends out runners another 20 or 30 feet to where you’re not looking for it.
At least we do have privacy through the dining room window. But a piece of advice, my friends, think curtains, mini-blinds or shutters!
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We have some in the front yard. They have been quietly setting up their base camp for the past three years, lulling us into a sense of security. We laughed when one popped up at the edge of the driveway, right by my van.
This was their year of expansion. They are twenty or more feet in almost every direction. The middle of my daylily patch. Up through the mock orange. Up through my ROSES!!
We are going to let them grow this year, lulling them into a sense of security. Then, when they are grown to a usable size
- whack! I will then have bamboo to make an arbor out of.
- whack! I will also have new supports for my roses
- whack! We’ll have flexible poles to weave into the tops of the dog fence where tree limbs have bent it.
But yes, think Kudzu. Then think blinds.
Sounds like a plan. But when you think you’ve won, DO NOT get rid of the machete just yet! Think BACKHOE…