Speaking of Hoboken’s backyard gardens (Hoboken Reporter, May 27), my neighbor has a big stand of bamboo, which (bamboo being a notoriously invasive fast-growing species), is invading my garden. When I complained, some while ago, a worker was hired to dig a trench between our property, but a trench does not stop bamboo, whose roots go over and under and around, and this is what it has done, recently sending up in my garden a shoot 8 ft. high that would make a good fishing pole. The only sure solution is to remove the stand of bamboo; but the neighbor, afraid, probably, of the expense, is reluctant.
So my question to the city is this: does one whose garden is being invaded have any recourse? Or does one just watch helplessly as the garden – into which one has put so much work and love – is invaded by this non-native, alien, species? Without some guidelines from City Hall, are neighbors doomed to fight herbicide wars at midnight? To feud? To become enemies? I think my neighbor (persuaded by an ignorant landscaper to plant it) should be required by a sane ordinance to get rid of this nuisance, and the city should undertake to remove it. The taxes we pay should cover the cost.
I see on the Internet that other towns in New Jersey (and New York and indeed the entire nation) have this problem and are grappling with it, banning the planting of this noxious species, and in some locales, fining owners who do not uproot this “vile weed” as Congress called it. What about Hoboken?
Credit: hudsonreporter.com
