r/GardeningAustralia • u/patgeo • Nov 10 '24

I hate the previous home-owners... Bamboo, Agapanthas, stupid spikey tree thing... 🙉 Send help

These damned root monsters the previous owners planted everywhere are destroying my sanity.

The bamboo is spreading into a garden bed over a metre away from where they planted them. The agapanthas destroyed a retaining wall and took over two full garden beds killing everything in their paths and of course are popping up everywhere. There are these two weird spikey trees that are now attacking the same retaining wall the agapanthas I removed did, they are also shooting all through the lawn and ON THE FAR SIDE OF THE HOUSE from what appears to be a shared root system between all of them.

I'm tired of digging up miles of root systems and root/bulb bound garden beds to get things other than these weeds growing...

Any tricks?

My electric cultivator helped with the agapanthas after I'd cut most out with the shovel, making it easy to shift the loose soil and get most out. But the bamboo roots and tangling it.

I'm trying to avoid salting the earth since I want to grow stuff there. But it's getting really tempting ... I've been painting the roots I cut with roundup if I don't pull them.

It just seems hopeless and my back hurts.

Edit:

The hopelessness is now more about the fight to prevent regrowth. I've ripped a lot of agapanthas and all the bamboo now.

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u/EliraeTheBow Nov 10 '24

I feel you, the previous owners planted bamboo, agapanthus, yukka and golden palms. It was a shit show and it’s taken us almost four years to get rid of them all and now we’re finally beginning to plant a functional mostly native garden (also doing patches of herbs and veggies).

Bonus was we found a lemon Myrtle and mulberry strangled by the bamboo, so that was a nice surprise at least.

19

u/Neon_Owl_333 Nov 10 '24

Yeah, previous owners here put in agapanthus, yukkas and oleanders. Each a different type of annoyance to remove.

Oh, and privet which I've only cut back so far.

9

u/patgeo Nov 10 '24

For the privet just call council, they posioned mine for me and it was super easy to remove once dead.

5

u/EliraeTheBow Nov 10 '24

You gotta get the bamboo roots out with a pickaxe or a breaker bar. It’s the only way unfortunately.

5

u/patgeo Nov 10 '24

I went with just cutting the entire chunk out, and I'll replace the soil.

5

u/EliraeTheBow Nov 10 '24

Sounds like you got it all then. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you. 😂.