My neighbor's 4 foot tall 'grass' turned out to be bamboo and now it is coming under my fence in Austin

Reese Anderson · 2026-10-09T15:55:04.673558+00:00

So about 14 months ago my next door neighbor planted this tall skinny green stuff along our shared fence line. I asked him what it was and he goes 'just some privacy grass, it grows fast.' Cool, whatever, not my yard. Fast forward to this spring and I start seeing these little shoots popping up on MY side of the fence, like 6 or 7 of them near my shed. I pulled them and they came back in a week, thicker each time. Turns out it is running bamboo and that stuff spreads underground with these root things called rhizomes, and a barrier needs to go like 30 inches deep or it just laughs at you. I ended up digging a trench along the fence by hand over two weekends and put in a 60 mil plastic barrier, cost me about $180 and a real sore back. I also had to tell him what was happening because his 'grass' is now 12 feet tall and leaning over my roof. He felt bad and split the cost with me, which was nice. Has anyone actually won a fight against running bamboo or did I just sign up for a lifetime of pulling shoots every March?

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My neighbor's 4 foot tall 'grass' turned out to be bamboo and now it is coming under my fence in Austin | Cool Weird Trees - Discusd