Do you have kudzu or bamboo in your area?
Posted by Hoosier_Jedi@reddit | AskAnAmerican | View on Reddit | 118 comments
Posted by Hoosier_Jedi@reddit | AskAnAmerican | View on Reddit | 118 comments
SMKnightly@reddit
Ppl keep trying to plant bamboo in our area and just don’t understand what they’re doing to themselves, their neighbors, and the future owners of their land. Just don’t do it
vasta2@reddit
It’s fine if it’s clumping no? I have clumping in my yard and it’s only growing in a fairly small circle and it’s 8 years old. Running bamboo is a different beast tho
SparkSignals@reddit
What part of the US are you from?
MM_in_MN@reddit
No. I live where the ground freezes for months at a time
Grand_Raccoon0923@reddit
Both in south Georgia.
Ok_Caterpillar2010@reddit
Both kudzu and bamboo here. Want some?
Hoosier_Jedi@reddit (OP)
Live in Japan. Got plenty!
Deolater@reddit
I've been told that kudzu doesn't grow like crazy and smother trees and all that in Japan, is that true? What's it like there?
Here it's an ugly, hairy, destructive mess
Zarathustra124@reddit
Kudzu's not as bad as people first thought, it grows fast but requires lots of sunlight. It looks bad when you're driving, since roads carved through the forest provide lots of light and ideal growing conditions, but it's generally not spreading deeper and taking over forests.
It also doesn't damage what it grows on, besides the smothering. Ivy ruins tree trunks and walls, sinking little roots into whatever it touches, but kudzu just wraps vines around things. It doesn't have thorns or chemical defences, and is even good cattle feed.
ThrowAwayIGotHack3d@reddit
Yep! Absolutely everywhere, I think the bamboo is technically running bamboo so it's really thing
MarquetteXTX2@reddit
Bamboo as in bamboo trees? Yes we do but I rarely ever see those trees..
NaomiiiTwinz@reddit
Kudzu is everywhere is the south
Traditional-Job-411@reddit
We also have bamboo here. It’s all rampant.
fasda@reddit
Some of it is a native species
eyetracker@reddit
Yep. Any time some western or country song talks about the canebrake, it's one of the 3 native species.
Better_Pea248@reddit
Also wisteria
Carl_Schmitt@reddit
and privet
Firefly_Magic@reddit
Privets aren’t bad are they?
Carl_Schmitt@reddit
In the South privet is terribly invasive. Illegal to plant in Tennessee and Florida, but honestly anyone who plants it belongs in prison.
Scott72901@reddit
And English ivy. I’ve had my house 25 years and I’m still fighting a battle against that stuff that started a quarter century ago.
SparkSignals@reddit
Yup Im from NC...Robeson County lol right on the border.
FlyByPC@reddit
It's eaten my back yard in Philadelphia.
marchmay@reddit
Both. Found a whole bamboo forest in my neighborhood once. Homeless guy was living in it.
HonestLemon25@reddit
Kudzu has made its way to my region in the last 10 years or so. It’s starting to take over everything.
RoxieRoxie0@reddit
No. I have Himalayan black berries.
omgcheez@reddit
I’ve seen some bamboo, but I see way more ivy. Tree of heaven is pretty obnoxious. Water Hyacinth is also brutal here and clogs waterways.
AnchoviePopcorn@reddit
Both.
RhinoGuy13@reddit
We have a ton of bamboo behind our fence line. I like how much privacy it offers.
Educational-Big-6609@reddit
Oregon - no
Forsythia77@reddit
Neither here, but tons of those smelly ass Bradford Pears aka cum trees.
SparkSignals@reddit
Yea they need to genocided 😂
Bluemonogi@reddit
I have not seen kudzu or bamboo growing in my area of northeast Kansas.
What we do have is the Virginia Creeper which sounds like a ScoobyDoo villain. It grows like crazy, is hard to get rid of and gives me a rash with the slightest contact.
majinspy@reddit
I live in Mississippi and yes to both. Kudzu has eaten a considerable amount of the state. Bamboo is rampant whenever it's allowed to be, though it isn't as wild as kudzu. I have friends with few acres of "bamboo forest" that's pretty neat.
BippidiBoppetyBoob@reddit
Not here
Adorable_Dust3799@reddit
Neither. Not at house, or cabin.
bloopidupe@reddit
Someone in my neighborhood planted bamboo and now I have to stay vigilant to keep it out of my yard.
Technical-Leader8788@reddit
They should face charges
United_Wolf_9215@reddit
Yes... need more goats.
Technical-Leader8788@reddit
I’ve read you can feed the inner part of bamboo to chickens in small quantities but honestly it’s not worth the effort to break up for them
Ghoulish_kitten@reddit
Bamboo in my back yard, and sometimes we get elder Asian ladies coming and asking for pieces.
Our patch in our backyard has never gotten bigger bc we cut the roots back regularly.
Technical-Leader8788@reddit
Please tell me they don’t want to plant it
Fred42096@reddit
Bamboo, no kudzu thank god
SparkSignals@reddit
Kudzu and Bamboo yes. Bamboo is native, kudzu is invasive. American south.
Happy_Confection90@reddit
Neither here, but Oriental Bittersweet has become a problem.
Wide_Breadfruit_2217@reddit
No kudzu in PNW. Bamboo only if planted on purpose. Are invasive equivalent is himalayan blackberry.
RsonW@reddit
Himalayan blackberry and Scotch broom in my part of California.
Drew707@reddit
Not sure what Scotch Broom is, but the blackberries are pervasive. Bamboo is a weed, too. The worst thing about blackberry is it grows exactly where the poison oak does. Both can fuck right off; I don't care how good blackberries taste.
nauticalfiesta@reddit
scotch broom is blooming right now in the seattle area, and blackberry is fucking annoying to deal with.
VoiceArtPassion@reddit
We’ve been seeing a lot of knotweed in my corner of the PNW
FlyByPC@reddit
Bamboo, no. (Not yet, anyway.)
Kudzu, yes. The back yard is the Kudzu Zone. It's not worth trying to fight it -- the other four or five properties surrounding the back of the lot are overrun with it, too.
MiddlePop4953@reddit
No, it can't live through the winter up here. We have enough invasive species here, we don't need any more 😅
Penguin_Life_Now@reddit
Yes, we have both at least to a limited degree, though each are MUCH more common within 2-3 hour driving distance from here.
FewRecognition1788@reddit
Yes, both.
Low_Key_2827@reddit
Yes to both. I've heard Kudzu has eaten the south, but it's working its way north too. We have it up in Connecticut now. It's the worst.
3Duder@reddit
Yes, I rented a house in Austin Texas for a year and part of the lease said I had to keep the patch of bamboo from spreading, I had to chop up fresh shoots every day with a pick axe.
PlayingDoomOnAGPS@reddit
Why not just remove the bamboo?
3Duder@reddit
Not my house and it's really hard to get rid if
Technical-Leader8788@reddit
Hope the rent was cheap af for this
3Duder@reddit
At the time the rent for a 2 bedroom house in Austin was less than a 1 bedroom apartment in northern Virginia. It was a pain in the butt though.
refinnej78@reddit
Yes, both. In South Carolina
BrainFartTheFirst@reddit
Yes to the bamboo but no to the kudzu thank God.
ReferenceCreative510@reddit
Yes to the running (spreading) bamboo. Specifically because of a neighbor.
cranberry_spike@reddit
I'm in the Midwest. No kudzu, and im not familiar with bamboo but apparently there is a native bamboo species, which is news to me 😅
haveanairforceday@reddit
No.
The sonoran desert is pretty decent at killing most invasive plants. Not all, for sure, but its not like the south
anneofgraygardens@reddit
no.
Lower_Kick268@reddit
Yeah, we used to have a bunch in my yard at my old house, we would chop the whole bamboo woods down every like 2-3 months and give the bamboo away to a guy we know that likes making stuff
Zillajami-Fnaffan2@reddit
Neither
Character_School_671@reddit
We have cheatgrass and tumbleweeds.
Kudzu and bamboo can't hack it on 6 inches of annual precipitation.
IceManYurt@reddit
Yes, both
river-running@reddit
Both.
avicia@reddit
Yes, owner of my house planted bamboo decades ago. it's a horror show.
Pop-19502020@reddit
Need to import some pandas.
AtheneSchmidt@reddit
In this economy!?!
fbibmacklin@reddit
Kudzu, yes. Hard to kill.
Imaginary-Duck1333@reddit
East TN- kudzu here, kudzu there, kudzu everywhere!
partsguy64@reddit
I’ve got all y’all beat. We’ve got Dollar Generals. They go up faster than kudzu can grow…….aaaand they’re everywhere!!!
Trick_Stage1834@reddit
In the south here...kudzu and poison ivy are taking over! And im scared to death of the latter.
Morak73@reddit
Bamboo in NE Ohio.
It struggled until the roots reached the lake. Now its unkillable. It spread to the neighbor's property, who mowed it, burned it, and dug at it.
The bamboo is winning.
AtheneSchmidt@reddit
I've never seen either growing in the Denver Metro area of Colorado. I do have a grape trellis made of bamboo stakes, though.
Beginning-Bedroom-89@reddit
Kudzu, everyone seemed to have answered for me because I didn’t have a clue what it was but im also not in the south lol. Bamboo tho we do have them they’re just largely in botanical gardens/parks
KJHagen@reddit
Not here in the Rocky Mountains. We have other invasive plants though.
chivopi@reddit
Both were where I grew up in MD.
HailingCasuals@reddit
What is kudzu?
(I think that answers the question.)
muchquery@reddit
A leafy vine that can grow about a foot a day. It pretty much chokes out every other plant underneath it.
artemisinagayway@reddit
It’s a super invasive vine that wrecks basically everything in the South. My parents lost half their fence and a palm tree to it, and even after they removed every trace of it, it still grew back.
Technical-Leader8788@reddit
It’s the devil.
leannmanderson@reddit
My city has a sister city in Japan Isesaki. We have beautiful Japanese gardens, including moon bridges, a massive koi pond, and a tea house, as a result, and that's where you will find most of the bamboo in the area, with some in private gardens.
We have kudzu all over.
Claxton916@reddit
No. I’m in the north.
Spiritualy-Salty@reddit
We have invasive Arundo donax in this area
old_Spivey@reddit
We had a huge grove at the end of the street, but a neighbor with vitiligo that everyone calls Panda, goes in there and crashes around knocking much of it down.
sfdsquid@reddit
Japanese knotwood.
It looks like bamboo. It's a scourge. Idk who had the bright idea of planting it at this house before we moved in.
VoiceArtPassion@reddit
We have bamboo in Washington but no kudzu. We also have Japanese knotweed.
Financial_Island2353@reddit
Both. They're EVERYWHERE
RespectableBloke69@reddit
Yes
Disastrous_Ad1260@reddit
Both
Annunaq@reddit
Both.
I garden as a hobby and I can’t help notice the damage those two plants have done to parts of our ecosystem here.
Driving by Augusta National you can see where they’ve planted bamboo in the past as a privacy screen. Can’t help but think what all their neighbors without the same resources as that golf club have to do to keep it from swallowing their yards.
Fire_Mission@reddit
Lots of kudzu. Some bamboo but nowhere near as much as kudzu.
Scrappy_The_Crow@reddit
Yes, both.
Golf38611@reddit
Both. But we use both. Kudzu jelly and cane fishing poles.
Fangsong_37@reddit
I’ve seen kudzu in Kentucky but it hasn’t made it into Indiana last time I checked. The only bamboo I have seen was at a zoo.
WashuOtaku@reddit
Both.
artemisinagayway@reddit
Yep, kudzu destroyed my parents’ fence and one of their palm trees.
gator_mckluskie@reddit
yes
Traveling-Techie@reddit
In SoCal we have bamboo where it was planted and spread, and has water. Many canyons in suburbs collect lawn runoff and have feral bamboo.
lomoliving@reddit
Live in Georgia - it's EVERYWHERE
crispyrhetoric1@reddit
Bamboo in spots. There was a big clump of it where I grew up. We called it the bamboo forest.
DeanBranch@reddit
Both are here in Georgia
tsukiii@reddit
Bamboo here and there. Not sure about kudzu, I don’t think it thrives here.
PuzzleheadedLemon353@reddit
I have black bamboo .
Elrohwen@reddit
Neither in the northeast. We have other invasives like Japanese knotweed and bindweed
5oco@reddit
We have bamboo across the street from but only because my neighbor is from Thailand and she planted it years ago
New-Sheepherder2239@reddit
Both
sundial11sxm@reddit
Both are possible!
thatthatguy@reddit
Too cold and too dry.
OhThrowed@reddit
Nope, that'd take having water.
Next_Ad_4165@reddit
Kudzu alllllllllllll over!
PerceptivePines@reddit
I grew up in Southern California, and we had a beautiful bamboo grove, right across the street ☺️
AngleRelative4683@reddit
In the southeastern part of the country yes