Bamboo Wall

Long gap, and we've been to Shepton Mallet and France in the meantime, but right now the issue is the wall that's been brought down by the black bamboo. Running along the canal side of the garden is a rather gross wall of concrete blocks. It now abuts the new decking. Previous owners planted bamboo in this garden and some of you might remember that we've taken out two clumps, just leaving the high-quality black bamboo. The other day as I was attempting to take out stray rhizomes the wall partially collapsed. I took down more wall to reveal the extent of bamboo incursion- - it had weakened the wall seriously in any case.

The rhizomes of bamboo have grown between the block wall and the 'decortive' concrete blocks next to the decking. They were prizing the two apart.

Chris helped a lot by striping the leaf shoots off of the canes so they can be dried and re-used at IF. None of this stuff is compostable in our climate with only domestic facilities, so it goes to Eastwood for what they call 're-cycling'.

I've decided to take down quite a lot of the wall and re-build. There is a problem in so far as the concrete blocks appear to have been 'stuck' together with some kind of thinnish white 'glue' - possibly PVA. To use PVA is unacceptable on a re-build. I'll use traditional cement at 1:3. Using thickish cement will obviously alter the height of the wall as well as its geometry with the rest of the wall and the decking. I cannot get down to the foundations of this wall because of the decking (and the canal bank).

Chris has been researching on what she calls the internet how to get rid of Bamboo, or at least manage it. The various very useful sites agree on one thing: it is not easy to eradicate or even manage this kind of bamboo. You just have to hack out as much as you can, as I did, with whatever sharp or blunt instruments of mass bamboo eradication you have - axes, sharp spade, mattock, small pick. So far as I'm concerned the Chinese can keep their bamboo - in China.