We happen to be finalizing a new webpage right now on bamboo control options, and it should be published soon.

In short, either the entire colony needs to be dug-out with excavators (landscape companies with experience in bamboo removal should have these) or you need to install barriers to keep it from spreading onto your property. Rhizomes are what spreads - they are underground stems that sprout the roots and stems as they travel. Specialty plastic "rhizome barriers" are for sale online and are installed in a trench that you may need an excavator to dig for you. (Especially if it encounters the tough rhizomes in the process, which will need cutting with very sharp and sturdy tools.) Then, you must check the barrier regularly each year to make sure no rhizomes escape over the lip, cutting back any you find doing so.

The fall-back option is herbicide, once the entire batch of culms (stems) are cut down. This may be one of the only recourses if the colony is growing somewhere inaccessible to equipment or among trees that would be damaged by excavation. Systemic herbicide products that include bamboo on the label should have application instructions; essentially, the chemical is painted onto the cut culm stump immediately after cutting. Multiple treatments will probably be needed as sprouts will keep re-emerging until the colony finally succumbs. Worst-case, it will be a multi-year process until eradication is achieved.

Miri