Day of the Bamboo

Garden fashion has a lot to answer for. Japanese knotweed was introduced to the UK by gardeners, mainly to act as an exotic backdrop to flower-bed plantings. Having no local controlling agents in its new location, it soon ran wild and now causes immense damage to house foundations, roads etc. Consequently it's now a notifiable 'weed'. A few years back, bamboo was strongly advocated in TV gardening programmes. It also became a fashionable addition to gardens. There are now fears that this fast-growing grass is becoming the 'new Japanese knotweed' (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jun/11/big-british-bamboo-crisis-invaded-my-beautiful-home). In the UK, bamboo was often avocated as an attractive barrier between neighbouring gardens. This has now created a problem as the plant can invade the property of the 'innocent' neighbour. The UK has no wild pandas or their equivalents. Consequently, there's nothing to constrain the spread of bamboo. Some garden plantings of this plant are now causing 10's of thousands of pounds of damage to UK houses and gardens. The rhizome-spreading versions of bamboo, are more problematic than the clumping varieties. The introduction of garden plants from distant locations ought to be much more carefully controlled. Looking attractive, for a particular function, shouldn't be a sufficient criterion. Careful evaluation of potential problems associated with 'alien' species should be performed before they are brought in and widely distributed.