Battling Nature in the Japanese Countryside: Takenoko

Bamboo: the most relentless of adversaries

The forest that leads to my yard and is the source of my woes. All photos by author.

There exists an enemy in Japan whose hit points match the toughest of final bosses. This foe does not quit, will break through all attempts to quell it, and laughs at you all the while.

This monster is bamboo.

Think I’m joking? Well, kinda. But not really.

Bamboo has been a two-sided reality for me since I moved into my house in the Japanese countryside.

The positives

The trees (well bamboo is actually grass, so stalks?) encircle my backyard and shield me from the neighbors. Complete privacy.

I also get free bamboo shoots (takenoko 竹の子) in the spring. They’re delicious and when I have too many, I sell them to my neighbors by setting up a self-serve table in my driveway.

Lastly, the way that the trees sway in the wind, their leaves rustling like ocean waves, is soothing and tranquil.

The negatives

They grow like alien spores between April-May. Little roots (called culms) of it breach the ground, looking like sand worms from Dune. These are the parts that are edible, and sellable. The problem is that they spread over my entire hillside. If I leave them without digging them up, they’ll eventually move under my house.

My dog sussing out a culm.

Then the fun begins: The roots can break through concrete, bust through my living room floor, and pierce my water pipes.

There’s a saying with bamboo:

The first year it sleeps, the second it creeps, the third it leaps.

During bamboo’s first year as a tall tree, most of its activity is spent in developing a strong underground root system. The second year sees that system spread underground with minimal above surface action. The third year? All hell breaks loose and the bamboo tries to swallow your whole property.

At this third year growing stage, bamboo can grow about a foot a day. So if I see a little shin-high culm in the morning when I go to work, by the time I get back its almost half my height, by the next day it will be taller than me. Sometimes when I’ve been too busy to deal with them, I’ll end up having to cut down a 20 foot giant and dispose of its body by hiding it in the grass somewhere.

Some of the spores bursting out of hell.

How to take bamboo out (or eat it)

I put on steel toed boots (there be vipers in the grass) and I descend the hill by my yard, look for sprouting culms, dig under them with a shovel, and pry them out.

If I want to cook them: shuck them like an artichoke, boil them in water with nuka (a rice byproduct) for an hour, cut off undesirable pieces, and then re-cook them in whatever fashion I want.

Shucking a culm. That sounds weird.

All well and good so far. But, last year I had over 70 of these demons in my yard. That’s a lot of shoveling, cooking and/or pawning them off on neighbors. And, as already mentioned, I don’t want them spreading into my yard proper and damaging my home or pipes.

The good news is that you can beat back the forest without resorting to herbicides (I have a dog so I try to avoid poisons as much as possible). The thing that gives the bamboo its life is the sun. It takes in the sun through its leaves.

Basic botany don’t fail me now.

So, if you take out the new bamboo before they grow leaves, you can gradually win. A bamboo forest is a single organism, a rhizome, an interconnected web of roots that are all connected with each other, like the aliens in Independence Day.

This monster spends a shit ton of energy in developing the culms into full grown bamboo. During this process, the would-be bamboo gives nothing back to the rhizome like an ungrateful child since they don’t have leaves.

So, if you let a good number of these culms actually grow into tall trees (only takes a few weeks max), the rhizome uses a lot of its reserves. Then, like the heartless bastard that you are, cut those new trees down before they grow leaves. According to a bamboo guru I saw on YouTube (so it must be true), you may have to do this over the course of 2-3 years, but eventually the forest will slow its growth and be manageable. This is because it wastes so much energy (growing tall plants) and gets nothing in return for it (more leaves to take in more sun). Alternatively, you can kill the entire forest this way by cutting down older trees as well.

Selling my burdens to the neighborhood.

I don’t want to engage in plantae-cide full scale, I just want to not have my home overrun. I also do love “some” takenoko to eat, and I absolutely love the privacy the trees give me.

It’s a love-hate relationship I need to learn to balance. And if you want to move into a home next to bamboo, take this information to heart.