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I was looking at a bamboo site and saw that they had some kind of bamboo spade for $176, pricier than any shovel I've ever seen. Have you bought specialized bamboo tools to help manage your bamboo?

I did buy a couple of tools for working with bamboo, a bamboo knife and a bamboo splitter. It is rather neat to take a culm of bamboo and split it into strips that can be used to build things.

King of spades original long handle, 15" best I recall. Mantis will know.

Whenever I go dig/divide bamboo I always ALWAYS have the following in my car as a minimum. I might bring additional items depending on any other info I have of the clump that I'll be digging off of, but this is my standard kit. People will fight over which brands are best, but these are what I use:

WW Manufacturing D-handled King of Spades KS-S-15:
http://www.wwmfg.com/default.asp?contentID=1117


WW Manufacturing long handled shovel LH-S-15:
http://www.wwmfg.com/default.asp?contentID=1155


Felco F-2 Hand pruners:
http://www.felcousa.com/felco/pages/pro ... =FELCO%202


Felco F-23 loppers:


Bosch cordless sawzall with extra batteries:
http://www.boschtools.com/Products/Tool ... ?catid=632


Pruning/Demolition sawzall blades:
http://tinyurl.com/258fjve


And most importantly, safety glasses (not for the tools, but to not get your eyeballs stuck/cut by bamboo.



Other items to have handy are large contractor garbage bags (the thick ones that don't tear easily), some twine, work gloves, pocket knife, saran wrap, and Gatorade.

I think that about covers it.

If your budget is limited and you have strong arms, a regular digging bar (or tamper bar, or something similar) is $30 or so at Home Depot or similar and works great for chopping rhizomes and prying out divisions. It's heavy though.

Shame on you Mantis you forgot the most important tool....Beer.
MarCat

marcat wrote:Shame on you Mantis you forgot the most important tool....Beer.
MarCat

... or a camera.

Those were the important tools for digging bamboo. Here is the most important tool for planting bamboo:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkzQeSq7jHc

Alan_L wrote:If your budget is limited and you have strong arms, a regular digging bar (or tamper bar, or something similar) is $30 or so at Home Depot or similar and works great for chopping rhizomes and prying out divisions. It's heavy though.

The boo spade is easily the same weight as a digging bar

Your arms really feel a day of digging with that sucker! I will say it makes digging divisions easier, but for most people, a good strong shovel would be just fine.

The one thing that does pay off by buying the high end stuff is the pruners. I agree with mantis on the felco pruners.

ghmerrill wrote: for most people, a good strong shovel would be just fine.

Completely dependent on the situation. I have dug a few divisions that there was no way a normal shovel would have worked. One perfect example was the Clone-X I dug a couple years ago... we ended up using a Stihl chainsaw to cut the rhizomes, and then even with the rhizomes cut it took jumping on the handle of my King of Spades to get the plant out of the ground (yes, jumping... stand on the handle, hold onto the bamboo culms for balance, and start jumping up and down). It was the ultimate battle royale to get that division.

That said, I've also dug divisions of Ph. v. 'Robert Young' and S. tootsik 'Albostriata' that I could have gotten out of the ground with a hand trowel.

I never know what I'll get myself into, which is why I just throw my basic tool kit in the car whenever I go on a dig.

mantis wrote:That said, I've also dug divisions... that I could have gotten out of the ground with a hand trowel.

Too bad your basic kit didn't contain one.

I actually do have a trowel in the car, but didn't list it as the spade trumps the trowel.

But just to be complete, here is the trowel I use:
http://www.amazon.com/Lesche-Digging-To ... 15INDWACCG

I already have Felcos and beer, and I have a couple of trowels ordered for my daylilies. Here is the spade I was speaking of, what do y'all think?

http://www.midatlanticbamboo.com/bamboo ... -spade.htm

It 100% depends upon which types of bamboo you will be working with. If it is for your runners or young clumping varieties it will work well. If you are going to try taking divisions out of mature clumping varieties you would be wasting your money. You'd be much better off using that money to buy a cordless sawzall.

http://picasaweb.google.com/Bamboo.Outl ... sentation#

Here is a heavy digger that has seen much use. I think for most folks the tools Mantis showed are the best option.

lucille-
I've got one of those Mid-Atlantic bamboo shovels and I can't begin to tell you how much time it's saved me. I not only use it for bamboo, but for digging out and dividing large plants, like Pampas grass, transplanting small trees, and dividing overgrown clumps of lilies. You'll be quite happy with it.