The Grass Look Alike That Could Be Taking Over Your Lawn

Keeping weeds out of your lawn is a concern for many gardeners and homeowners who take pride in maintaining a lush green yard. When inspecting your lawn, be on the lookout for weeds and invasive plants that resemble grass but are. Bamboo is a grass lookalike that could be taking over your lawn.

Bamboo (Bambusa vulgaris) is not just one species of plant but a group of giant perennial grasses. There are more than 1,400 different species that vary widely in size and are among the world's fastest-growing plants. When fully grown, bamboo can range in height from a few feet to more than 16 feet tall. However, young bamboo resembles grass — the stems don't change from grassy to woody until the plant gets taller.

While bamboo is useful in construction, art, and as a food source, there are a few reasons that it's bad for your yard — the main one being that it's invasive. Bamboo can be either clumping, which grows slowly, or running, which spreads quickly through underground runners called rhizomes. In addition to taking over your lawn, there is the potential risk to your home that comes with planting bamboo in the yard. Bamboo rhizomes can grow into cracks or gaps in pipes, walls, or floors, damaging the foundation, plumbing, and siding.

While some varieties of bamboo won't invade your yard, it can take over your lawn quickly. Running bamboo spreads as the rhizomes grow sideways underground and emerge some distance from the original plant. If it is invading your space, you need to remove it before it gets established in your yard, and it becomes much more difficult to get out.

When the young bamboo shoots resembling grass appear on the lawn, keep them mowed. You will also need to deal with the unwanted shoots and runners. The rhizomes can be between 2 and 18 inches below the ground, so it's important to cut them and pull them up. You can do this by digging a trench around the bamboo as it comes up to expose the rhizomes. Then, pull them up from the ground as high as possible, then cut them off with a mattock or ax. Any rhizomes that are missed can resprout, so the process may need to be repeated every year over multiple years to completely eradicate the invasive bamboo.

Bamboo that is invading your property from a neighbor's yard may continue to be a problem, but one option is to install a barrier. You can purchase rolls of 30- to 36-inch rhizome barrier from nurseries or online, or hire someone to install it for you. Dig a trench and bury the barrier vertically in the ground, leaving about 6 inches exposed to prevent bamboo from coming over the top. Backfill the trench and keep an eye on the barrier to watch for any new, wandering rhizomes.