New homeowners' five-month battle with invasive plant in backyard: 'Killed everything'

Yahoo

2 days ago

A first homeowner is celebrating after a five-month backyard battle with an invasive plant stretching 20 metres-high along his fence line.
The man and his wife, who purchased the Brisbane property nine months ago, began the lengthy and tedious process of removing the 'absolute monstrosity of bamboo' spurting from the ground over the Christmas holidays.
At least one day a week, the couple — wielding a chainsaw and bottle of herbicide — chipped away at the unruly mass, with the final piece being cut down this week. To celebrate their victory, the man posted numerous images online of the bamboo, some of which he said was as thick as his leg, towering over their garden and the property next door.
'It had all stayed in its clumps on our side. Hasn't spread anywhere else. Although it was dramatically hanging right over their property before we cut it down,' he said.
The homeowner revealed the notoriously fast spreading plant, which is native to tropical and subtropical Asia and features over 100 species, had irritated numerous surrounding residents.
'The whole neighbourhood was sick of the leaves going everywhere and filing everyone's gutters,' he explained. 'It killed everything around it. And our house is now full of natural light.'
Just a week after the couple purchased the home, their immediate neighbours approached them 'asking for it to be removed'. To help them do so, the man said the 'awesome' residents agreed to let the couple rip down their shared fence so they could 'have full side access via their property the whole time'.
'Wouldn't have been able to do it without that, so we are very grateful,' the man added. 'Although they are just as stoked it's gone themselves.'
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While everything up to this point had been done by hand, the homeowners will enlist the help of an excavator to remove the remaining stumps, each of which they sprayed with 'poison' to prevent it from growing back.
'We pretty much sprayed each shoot the second we cut it. Seemed to work quite well. Within a week they'd lost all colour and gone hard,' the man said. A new fence and privacy trees will be installed in the future.
Earlier this year, Sydney garden centre owner Tim Pickles told Yahoo News bamboo is not suitable for narrow gardens often found in Aussie suburbs and cities.
'Bamboo, by nature, spreads and gets wider and wider over time, so in today's narrow gardens, it impacts your neighbours,' he said. 'They're uncontrollable... it eventually pops up next door... it's disrupting as it can lift pavements, concrete fences... it's a powerful plant.'
Bamboo, species of which were introduced to Australia as an ornamental plant, have spread into many parts of South East Queensland and northern NSW, where they have become a problem for landowners. Shoots from buds of underground stems can spread and produce new canes slowly or rapidly, depending on whether they are a clumping bamboo or a running bamboo. The former is less invasive of native vegetation.
In Queensland, the plant is not considered to be prohibited or restricted under the Biosecurity Act 2014, however, by law, all residents have an obligation to 'take reasonable and practical steps to minimise the risks associated with invasive plants under their control'.
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