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A bamboo excavation leaves a larger area of disturbed ground than most people picture, because the dig follows the rhizomes rather than the clump. What to do with it depends mostly on how patient you are prepared to be.
First: the Ground Itself
- Backfill in layers, firming as you go. Loose backfill in a deep hole settles for years afterwards, and everything on top settles with it
- Use clean imported topsoil rather than returning the excavated material, which is the material fragments were in
- Leave the level slightly proud of the surrounding ground to allow for the settlement that will still happen
- Do not add the old spoil back as a soil improver. It leaves site, all of it
The Watching Season
Through the first growing season, walk the area every few weeks and pull anything that appears. Shoots from fragments are thin and weak and come away easily, often bringing the fragment with them. Each one removed is energy the fragment does not get back.
Bare soil is the easiest surface to do this on, which is the argument for leaving the area simple for a year. A shoot in open ground is obvious; the same shoot in a new border with a mulch on it is not.
What to Put There, by How Soon
Straight away, and low risk
- Leave it as bare soil and keep it hoed. Least satisfying, easiest to monitor
- Annual bedding or vegetables — the ground is freshly dug and it will grow them well, and anything coming up among them is easy to spot
- Lawn — possible immediately, and mowing is genuinely effective against any regrowth
- Containers standing on the area while you wait
After a season
- Permanent planting and shrubs — ideally once you have seen a clean spring
- A new border with mulch, which hides exactly what you want to be able to see
After a season, and be certain
- Paving, decking, a shed base or anything built — there is no remedy for bamboo under a patio short of taking the patio up
If You Actually Liked the Bamboo
Plenty of people remove a running bamboo and still want the look, which is entirely reasonable — it was planted for a reason. The options are a clumping variety, which stays where it is put, or the same running variety inside a proper barrier installed at planting. Both work. What does not work is replanting a running bamboo into open ground and intending to keep on top of it.
One Thing Worth Doing Now
If there is bamboo elsewhere on the plot, or next door, this is the moment to look at it. The excavation you have just paid for is considerably cheaper on a clump that has run two metres than on one that has run ten, and the second one is what the first becomes.
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Ask Us About Your Own Garden
If the area is going to lawn, planting or paving afterwards, tell us at the quotation — it changes how we backfill and to what level.
Tell us what needs doing across Hertfordshire and we will quote for the work. Call 07388 094829, message us on WhatsApp or use the form below.