Thank you very much for all that info! I am on Long Island, althought I am further south than you, the ocean usually keeps our summers milder than inland. As for the trench... what I have done so far this year (before finding out its a runner), was I went to the furtherest "clump" of culms and used a mallet to carefully dig them up. When I lifted them up I was able to follow the rhizome back to the next "clump" towards the main grove. I was also able to see if the clump I dug up had a rhizome that was underground leading away from the main grove. Ideally I would like to get this grove to about half the size... maybe take 5-8ft off the entire perimeter. A couple of questions: Can I plant grass ontop of the lopped culms? I know the roots are so shallow, I am not sure if I will be able to grow "regular" lol grass ontop of the dying/dead roots. If I wanted to dig up and completely remove the 5-8ft off the perimeter I would do it over time (a month or so). Would it be best to cut all the culms back at once to where I want them and then dig them out over the course of a month or two. Or would it be better to just cut down a few clumps of culms and then dig them right up? I guess I am just worried if I cut down the culms to the area I wanted, would the bamboo go nuts sending out rhizomes? Thanks again for all the help. I spent 6 years in Hawaii and grew to love bamboo, but we have a pretty big yard with alot of stuff going on already (pond, garden, veggies..etc) So I dont really have time to maintain a 30' bamboo grove.

If you are conscientious about root pruning, you should have no problems. I have been in my present location for 3-1/2 years, Zone 8. I have several clumps of Black bamboo in full sun that started as 5-gallon pots, and each clump now occupies a space about 3' in diameter. Black bamboo can be aggressive. I have had runners go as far as 6-7' in one season, but they are pretty close to the surface and not hard to tame. I typically go down a couple of inches, find the runner, cut through it with a long-handled lopping pruner, and then pull it out of the ground. It will take a little strength sometimes and you will be pulling dirt out that you will want to knock off. If the rhizome is too hard to "unzip" from the ground, I've found that slipping the pick end of a pickaxe under the rhizome and leveraging it will usually get it unstuck.

It looks like some sort of impatiens. I found a French page with some likely candidates, Impatiens balfourii and I. glandulifera, which are identified as aliens to the south Massif Central: http://causses-cevennes.com/flore/Cevennes.htm Below is another link, to a page on our native North American impatienses, the jewelweeds. Here is a link that might be useful: Jewelweed -- pictures, uses, commentary

Our landscaper wants us to plant Golden Bamboo along a fence line with a neighbor we do not get along with........The quote she gave us says that Golden clumps and is yet somehow a good screening bamboo Your landscaper doesn't know beans about her bamboo!! Golden bamboo, Phyllostachys aurea, is a running bamboo and a very agressive one at that. While it does make an excellent privacy screen, it MUST be contained. I have no experience of growing it in TX, but here it grows almost equally well in either sun or shade. It grows in both coniferous and deciduous forests in its native China so shade adaptation would appear to be natural. The only thing that seems to slow its spread or thin out its growth is dryness -- very dry soils tend to keep it on the feeble side. btw, according to the USForest Service, it has escaped cultivation and has formed extensive stands in Tarrant and Grayson counties. "Golden bamboo has invaded secondary forests, forest clearings, and forest edges in Texas ". There are at least a couple of bamboo nurseries in TX that specialize or at least offer clumping bamboos, which are an entirely different and very non-offensive kettle of fish. Just Google 'clumping bamboo Texas' for a few websites.