Whew. Been digging out a bamboo infestation out the back fence. God this is hard work. I can only do about an hour a day before I feel like I might be stressing my ticker a little too much. I hate this weed. A year ago the neighbor and I cut down the stand, which had popped up out of nowhere. Then began cutting the culms that tried to come up and putting herbicide on the stubs all year this year. Manageable to do this for the couple of years it'd take to kill off the whole system, but the roots are not dying fast enough for me so I started digging them up. 🥵
I've been continuing my bamboo digging project since the weather's warming up, and made huge progress today. I've now got all the roots that I could find. And just in time too because some of them were already beginning to sprout new spring shoots. God. What a chore. This is a multi-year fight.
Meanwhile, the neighbor's property, the source of this bamboo scourge, is still rife with the stuff and the neighbor's renter told me today the new ones are popping up in that yard already. Which means this fight will never end because they're not doing the work to get the roots out.
Bamboo update: I did my first lawn mowing of the year and saw one bamboo shoot just coming up in the problematic corner of the yard. I really thought I'd dug it all out. Was this a root coming over from the neighbor's yard? I carefully dug it up and discovered that I had managed to cut two ends of a rhizome in my previous digging, leaving about a one-foot section still in the ground. All it takes is one node! But it's gone now. I'm relieved.

@Nonya_Bidniss

Words cannot express the intensity of my loathing for the neighbors I never met who planted bamboo in their lawn and then moved away.

I've lived here for 16 years, and my hate for these insufferable people that I've never even met still burns with the radiance of a thousand suns.

@DaveMWilburn Idiots! They may have left because they discovered the depth of their mistake.

@Nonya_Bidniss
@DaveMWilburn

If feasible given the linear length involved, obtain a roll of 8-10" sheet metal (galvanized or aluminum) and sink it vertically along the edge where you want the bamboo to horizontally stop.

Bamboo roots won't make it past the metal barrier.

@lupus_blackfur @DaveMWilburn Nope. I've seen that recommendation a hundred times, and nope. I've dug up rhizomes well over a foot deep. They WILL make it past that.

@Nonya_Bidniss @DaveMWilburn

Understand...

They do make sheet metal in even wider widths... 18", 24"...

could go even deeper...

If feasible.

🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️