Bountiful Bamboo

Uses of Bamboo

There are dozens of uses for bamboo! Bamboo is most often used in construction, such as flooring, roofing, and scaffolding. It is used to create furniture, paper, and cloth. Environmentally, bamboo is an excellent option for improving soil and preventing erosion.

Pros and Cons of Bamboo

Like most plants, there are pros and cons to planting bamboo in your yard or garden.

Pros

• Pest resistance: bamboo is not high on the list of preferred munchies for Alabama native wildlife and is rarely bothered by insects.
• Environmental benefits: bamboo releases oxygen and absorbs greenhouse gasses, providing cleaner air!
• Easy to grow: bamboo requires very little maintenance and grows quickly. Typically, hardwood trees take decades to grow to maturity -, a process that only takes bamboo one to five years.
• Effective privacy: bamboo can be an attractive, noise-reducing privacy screen around a yard or home.

Cons

• Bamboo is aggressive and grows extremely quickly. The plant can easily spread beyond the intended space and become a problem for native plants as it competes with them for growing space.
•  Breaking up is hard: If you decide you want to change up your landscaping, bamboo can be stubborn and difficult to remove entirely. This is due to the rhizomes (a type of root system) that grow underground upwards of 20 feet or more in just one season.

How To Eradicate Bamboo in Your Yard

More coming soon!