Disposing of Bamboo

[Bootstrap]

I am digging up a lot of invasive bamboo that we want to get rid of.

Now what?

Can you hot-compost bamboo? If so, how? I gather you can't burn it because it explodes, and you can't cold-compost it because it then spreads.

[Wade]

While your at it we have a few hundred feet mostly 20ft wide... I'd like to know what to do as well.

[Bootstrap]

While your at it we have a few hundred feet mostly 20ft wide... I'd like to know what to do as well.

I used to use a mattock and pry bars to get bamboo up, I recently bought a Root Assassin shovel, and it makes the job a whole lot easier.

I've heard that for larger stands you can whack it down with a machete, several times a year, until the roots run out of energy and it dies down. I can't verify that from my own experience, though.

But I don't know how to get rid of it once you've pulled it up ...

[Wade]

While your at it we have a few hundred feet mostly 20ft wide... I'd like to know what to do as well.

I used to use a mattock and pry bars to get bamboo up, I recently bought a Root Assassin shovel, and it makes the job a whole lot easier.

I've heard that for larger stands you can whack it down with a machete, several times a year, until the roots run out of energy and it dies down. I can't verify that from my own experience, though.

But I don't know how to get rid of it once you've pulled it up ...

How big are the explosions when burning it? Burning really has a way of getting rid of bad, and it's God's method too...

[JimFoxvog]

Watch a YouTube video of it burning. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pSFj27gUmQ) I'd burn, but be careful; just don't burn in an open fireplace in your house.

[Neto]

There are different varieties, and some grow very large (in diameter) and very tall. Others never seem to get much bigger around than an inch or so. We had a huge clump of the big kind. Hacking it down doesn't kill it. Ever. Some people wacked it down, and then built a hot fire on that spot. We couldn't do that, because it was too close to our house. Others had a back hoe come in & dig it out. (That's what we had to do.)
As far as getting rid of the canes themselves (after cutting them down), if you can keep it up off of the ground it will eventually dry out and die - no longer sprout if it comes into contact with the ground. It does pop pretty loud when you burn it (unless of course you cut each section open). It's loud enough that people came from around close to a half a mile away to see what was exploding.

[Bootstrap]

I have an acre, but they moved the city limits out to include us, so I can't burn according to the city ordinances (I just checked).

I guess I could let it dry in a shed, I have a big empty shed out back. I'll also see about the yard waste program in my city. Nobody seems to be suggesting that hot composting is going to work for me?

[Neto]

I have an acre, but they moved the city limits out to include us, so I can't burn according to the city ordinances (I just checked).

I guess I could let it dry in a shed, I have a big empty shed out back. I'll also see about the yard waste program in my city. Nobody seems to be suggesting that hot composting is going to work for me?

It doesn't have to be "in the dry" for it to dry out. As long as it doesn't have constant moisture on the joint areas, it won't sprout. (I put down a couple of other type branches, and then stack the canes across them. This was in Brazil, so a generally wet climate, but it did the trick.) [Edited to add: I don't remember how long it took for it to dry out & die. Our property abutted the jungle, so I just did it back into the woods, and didn't care how long it took, as long as it didn't start growing there.]

Another idea I hadn't thought of previously - a chipper. I don't know for sure, but I don't think it would grow if it was chopped up. (Maybe it would, though. I'd try it out first, before making a huge mulch pile of it someplace.)

Or try to sell it. They used to make furniture out of it, and once a restaurant asked us to cut some, to use as walls/decoration, promising that they would give us a couple of free meals after they started serving. (They didn't - never heard from them again.) There is also a plywood product now being made from bamboo, and you can get all sorts of things made of it.