Identification help, please?

21 years ago

Hi, I was hoping maybe some of you experts might be able to help me identify my plant. I have always called it bamboo, but now when I look at other pics, I am not sure. Please take a look at my pictures in this album:

http://photobucket.com/albums/v655/stoked79/Bamboo/

The plant shoots up little rhizomes each spring and dies back to the ground in the winter. I live in central Indiana, so it gets kinda cold in the winter. If you look closely at the leaves, there are actually two different kinds of leaves. The vertical chutes have branches that have a rounded oval shaped leaf. Then there is also a 2nd kind of leaf that comes straight from the vertical chute. That leaf is tri-lobed.

So, is it bamboo? wild grass? something else?

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Here is a link that might be useful: My bamboo pics

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Comments (8)

User
21 years ago
Your links ask me to login as you to see the pics. I think you have to make them public.
stoked
Original Author
21 years ago
Oops...sorry about that!

Got it fixed.
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kudzu9
21 years ago
stoked-
It's not bamboo. It looks like Japanese knotweed to me, which is a pretty invasive plant. However, where you live, maybe it gets set back each winter. In more temperate climates, the usual advice is to eradicate this plant. Check out this link to compare photos and read about this plant:

Knotweed
stoked
Original Author
21 years ago
kudzu9,
I think thats it! Thanks for the helpful link. Now I know what I am working with. All this time, I thought it was bamboo, but no...just an invasive plant! ;o)

Oh well, it works where I am at and I think it looks nice. It grows up to 10 feet or so every year, then dies down to the ground in the winter. I transplated a bunch of it in the spring. I was gonna use it to make a nice screen along my back fence. I had planned on continuing to transplant more in the fall to further the screen, but now I am not sure what to do? It looks okay, but now that I know it isn't bamboo, I don't know?

Thanks for the help with the ID!
stockwell
21 years ago
To quote the chef from the new reality show, Hells kitchen, "IT'S CRAP"! Kill it.
stoked
Original Author
21 years ago
Hahahaha....I like that show!

What do you recommend to kill it with? I have never tried to remove something so large. That rootball is HUGE! It was given to me years ago, from someone who got it from someone. Only thing I knew was that the person I got it from called it bamboo. Woops, won't do that again. Next time I better investigate earlier.
kudzu9
21 years ago
stoked-
Well, it is called "Mexican bamboo," so it's understandable based on that name and the appearance that you thought it was bamboo. If you actually want to kill it, that's a real challenge. If you go back to that link I gave you, you can see that there are many approaches...and none are easy. I don't know what to recommend because I've never had any. Good luck, whatever you do.
stockwell
21 years ago
I've never had to get rid of JK, however when I got sick of cutting the privits I got rid of them by simply digging them out by hand and driving them to the dump.
P.S Larry Bird rules!