New little pointy-headed shoots of bamboo are peeking up in new places both in and outside of our raised bed. Being a weekend gardener/warrior (spawn of Schwarzenegger and Martha Stewart?), I rip out what I can on a Sunday, then am gone for the work week, and come back the next weekend to raise pick and drive shovel again, discovering their escape efforts. It’s as if the underground bamboodly rhizomes see the carnage going on around them and holler, “Whoa, Mildred, time to hit the road!”
Yeah, so I finished digging the bamboo stalks, rhizomes, and (much of the) roots out this weekend. Not without some incident. The bamboo has escaped under the fence to our neighbor’s yard, and stalks are peeking up over on their side of the fence (about six feet high) like mutant corn.
Digging it out has meant some, err, uh, “excavation” under the fence. Chopping down the stalks probably filled our yard waste bin five or six times, tightly packed, and now the rhizomes and roots have easily been another four or five bins full.
Have you ever gotten a bit fixated during a project? Taking it to another level? That’s what it’s like digging out bamboo rhizomes. I undercut them and chop out what I can from our yard, exposing and digging under the fenceline, and then it’s oh-so-easy (using the word easy somewhat loosely) to continue chopping and hacking out rhizome from their side of “under our fence.”
Hey, I filled in the dirt again, when I was done. We put a new board in place to replace the rotten redwood that fell apart, and I had it coverd up.
Until the neighbor’s yappy little scottish terrier, Kiwi, sniffed around, found the soft earth, and dug his way over to our yard. And then he couldn’t make his way back.
Mrs. Ombud and our Edie girl got to say hello, but at whom do you suppose Kiwi started yapping again?
Yeah, me.
Even as I brought him treats! I tried to bribe him out of the pit in our yard so I could dig out a chunk of bamboo rhizome, open up a larger hole, and help him back to his side of the fence.
I finally stopped soft-pedaling it and stepped forward, and he scuttled off past the jade plants to the back corner of our yard to yap at me from a safe distance as I chopped out a rhizome and opened a larger hole. I then walked to the middle of the backyard, Kiwi growled and returned to the pit, found the new hole, scurried through to his side, and resumed barking at me from the safety of his own yard.
Sheesh! What a freakin’ ingrate. I have some pictures of him, our dogs, and rhizomes coming, next post.
