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propagation

Comfrey and Bamboo

Jackson Bradley

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posted 1 year ago

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Comfrey and bamboo have very bad reputations. I am thinking because if they are in an environment, without management, they do become increasingly invasive.

I am thinking there are some things about both of these plants that are just repeated without actual knowledge of the issue. For example, Comfrey has a bad rep in the medical field on effects on the liver. Doc Jones, at Homegrown herbalists, breaks these reports down. Look for his "deep dive on Comfrey".

I am not trying to diminish that certain situations could exist where these things can be an issue but I want to gather the wealth of this whole forum to ask you this;

Send me the pics of your property where these plants are taking over and are a problem and tell me about how you have tried to manage them.

I would also like to see pics where you have them and manage them. Please help me understand how you manage them and what the out come is.

I will have some pics to share soon when things turn green again.

"Condemnation by category is the lowest form of hatred for it is cold hearted and abstract, lacking the heat and even the courage of a personal hatred." -Wendell Berry

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the video referenced above: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4y0oTyrOSc8

Jay Angler

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posted 1 year ago

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It's a matter of opinion. Hubby would tell you that my bamboo is taking over. Yes, its footprint has spread, but we've also created paths through the patch, and the culms are not tight together, so in my opinion it is a grove managed for production of useful culms for whatever projects we need light material for.

In the case of bamboo, it's the right variety for the right location. I have P. dulcis so it's sufficiently edible that using it as a spring green helps control it. (Unfortunately, I also have geese - geese eat grass - bamboo is a grass. The wild rabbits agree with the geese, and I'm suspicious that the deer also agree.) However, P. dulcis is also close to the edge of its climate tolerance. The culms sometimes break when we get our wet snow, but mostly they just don't grow as large as their genetics would allow under better for them conditions.

If I wanted the grove gone, it would likely take 3 years, but chopping all the culms to the ground and then chopping regrowth as soon as it's seen, would do the job. However, I will admit that I once had to deal with a friend's unmanaged P nigra patch. Since the culms had been allowed to grow too close together, it was an all or nothing chop to the ground. Very hard work, and exactly the sort of thing which gives bamboo a bad name.

I choose the variety carefully!

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Jackson Bradley

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Jay Angler wrote: However, I will admit that I once had to deal with a friend's unmanaged P nigra patch. Since the culms had been allowed to grow too close together, it was an all or nothing chop to the ground. Very hard work, and exactly the sort of thing which gives bamboo a bad name.

I choose the variety carefully!

I suspected something like that. If you are able to harvest and manage, just like a garden, it can be useful. If you do not, it can be difficult.

I think I read Bryant Redhawk write about removing it from someone's property and it seemed to be a pain because it was out of control.

"Condemnation by category is the lowest form of hatred for it is cold hearted and abstract, lacking the heat and even the courage of a personal hatred." -Wendell Berry

Jonie Hill

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Location: SE Australia

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In terms of comfrey's supposed negative effects on the liver, I for one have decided that theory is misinformation. Considering there are no actual reports of people being harmed by it, you'd have to eat a truckload of the leaves to ingest the amount of the substance they're saying is toxic, and I've read about people whose families have eaten vast quantities of leaves every day without harm & instead seeming to thrive on it, plus the other animals that have been fed large quantities. I believe it is such an amazing plant for our health that the powers that be don't want us using it.
In Australia we are encouraged to wage war on a lot of the amazing medicinal plants and I can't help thinking this is purposefully so that we don't consider using, or, (if we do succeed in wiping them out) have the ability to treat ourselves with these plants which have been used by humans for centuries if not thousands of years. Call me a conspiracy theorist, I don't care. In the past indigenous people didn't encounter new plants & say it wasn't here before now so we must eradicate it. If they found it to be useful, they used it. Makes sense to me.

Judith Browning

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I plant comfrey everywhere...it can't spread fast enough for me.
It's the only thing that shades out bermuda grass.

We have three kinds...a brilliant blue flowered one, a purple flowered and even a viable seed one.
Great mulch and medicinal also.

My clumping one with pink flowers did not survive our drought.

I've never tried to learn the varieties names...they came from friends and neighbors through plant exchanges except for the one that reseeds...that I bought fearlessly

.

I might have planted bamboo here also except for the fact that there is a vacant lot overgrown with a bamboo that has run rampant within a half block from our house and we are encouraged to cut all we want.

We've been in this spot ten years now and I don't really see the comfrey as invasive at all.
The bamboo patch though is an example of what happens when that nice little patch of bamboo is left untended for decades ....

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Timothy Norton

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I have two varieties of sterile Russian comfrey at home home. I have read that disturbing the roots can cause a comfrey explosion so I placed them in areas that I don't frequently dig.

My primary uses for comfrey are hillside erosion control and as chop + drop. While it is not a fibrinous root system, it is rhizomatous and has done well reducing erosion in my experience.

So far, I have not noticed my two patches growing outside of where I have originally planted them. Through observation, my partially shaded comfrey (by trees) have been roughly a third of the size smaller than my comfrey in full sunlight. If I had to remove comfrey I would probably approach it via solarization or a smother layer of the patch.

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Jackson Bradley

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Jonie Hill wrote:In terms of comfrey's supposed negative effects on the liver, I for one have decided that theory is misinformation.

If you watch the Doc Jones video on Comfrey I mentioned in the OP, he goes through all the ones he can find. They case against Comfrey did not appear to be substantial at all.

"Condemnation by category is the lowest form of hatred for it is cold hearted and abstract, lacking the heat and even the courage of a personal hatred." -Wendell Berry

Jackson Bradley

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Judith Browning wrote:I plant comfrey everywhere...it can't spread fast enough for me.
It's the only thing that shades out bermuda grass.

I had not thought of it as a tool to reduce the amount of grass in a place. That is helpful to consider, thank you.

"Condemnation by category is the lowest form of hatred for it is cold hearted and abstract, lacking the heat and even the courage of a personal hatred." -Wendell Berry

Sam Shade

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Location: Memphis (zone 7b/8a)

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When I lived on less than 1/10th of an acre and I was trying to make the front yard presentable, I hated the little reedy bamboo that had taken over.

But now that I have some space and some goats I welcome all edible invasives. Goats are really the key here - their ability to strip and devastate makes them a great match for anything that grows out of control. Irresistible forces vs immovable objects.

Jackson Bradley

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Sam Shade wrote:But now that I have some space and some goats I welcome all edible invasives. Goats are really the key here - their ability to strip and devastate makes them a great match for anything that grows out of control. Irresistible forces vs immovable objects.

How about pigs and bamboo?

"Condemnation by category is the lowest form of hatred for it is cold hearted and abstract, lacking the heat and even the courage of a personal hatred." -Wendell Berry

Sam Shade

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Location: Memphis (zone 7b/8a)

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Josh Hoffman wrote:

Sam Shade wrote:But now that I have some space and some goats I welcome all edible invasives. Goats are really the key here - their ability to strip and devastate makes them a great match for anything that grows out of control. Irresistible forces vs immovable objects.

How about pigs and bamboo?

I haven't been blessed with a pig yet, but I would love to find out. I've heard they're good at clearing bamboo shoots to keep groves from taking over new areas.

Hugo Morvan

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I have creeping comfrey. It's quite controllable I find. Mowing edges where it wants to move in. Plant some shrubs will block it. Trees shade it out as well.
Bamboo is tall itself and will need animal help. That can be expensive considering they need fencing in.

Creating edible biodiversity and embracing everlasting abundance.

Eino Kenttä

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Josh Hoffman wrote:How about pigs and bamboo?

Well, I don't know much about bamboo (too cold for most of the species here) but I have seen pigs pretty much exterminate a patch of Japanese knotweed. The only place it kept growing was right under the electric fence... So I guess there are two questions: is bamboo tougher than Japanese knotweed, and is it less tasty to pigs?

Jackson Bradley

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Thank you for writing your experience with the pigs.

I think pigs are next on the agenda for animal additions. That may take a while to take shape though and is still a maybe.

I have some different varieties of bamboo in a low lying, wet area that would make a great pig wallow. It would be neat if the pigs would manage the bamboo for me and I could fence in enough for my needs in the shape of a circle. Everything outside of that would get rooted and eaten.

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