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Ocean City gets ready to take aim at bamboo

The first time bamboo grew in Vincent Lobascio's backyard, the retired Audubon borough commissioner didn't know what it was. Now he does.

Audubon is battling bamboo. But former borough commissioner Vince Lobascio, 89, may have come up with a solution. He talks about it in his dining room on September 11, 2014. (TOM GRALISH / Staff Photographer)
Audubon is battling bamboo. But former borough commissioner Vince Lobascio, 89, may have come up with a solution. He talks about it in his dining room on September 11, 2014. (TOM GRALISH / Staff Photographer)Read more

The first time bamboo grew in Vincent Lobascio's backyard, the retired Audubon borough commissioner didn't know what it was.

Now he does.

"The roots are like octopus tentacles," Lobascio, 89, says. "It could be a beautiful plant, but it really doesn't belong in an urban or suburban area like this. It needs to be controlled."

As residents of Audubon, Gloucester Township, Ocean City, and other communities with bamboo issues know, the high-rising, fast-growing plants can make good fences.

But because they tend to sprout where they're not wanted - as in the backyard next door - bamboo plants can make bad neighbors, too.

"People plant it . . . and it gets away from them," says Bruce Crawford, director of the Rutgers Gardens, a 179-acre botanical complex on the New Brunswick campus.

Varieties commonly cultivated in New Jersey have roots (called rhizomes) that spread rapidly and readily, although they don't like standing water.

"I've seen patches growing in Warren and Sussex Counties in North Jersey and along both sides of I-476 in Pennsylvania," Crawford says.

Bamboo does have its admirers. "We have a grove, an acre and a half in size, that's a key feature of the gardens. It was brought here in 1916 from China, and people love it," says Crawford, whose facility attracts 30,000 visitors a year.

About 700 people belong to the American Bamboo Society (bamboo.org). And an international organization called World Bamboo will celebrate "World Bamboo Day" on Thursday.

Some bamboo varieties are native to places like Louisiana and Florida, but plants able to withstand Mid-Atlantic winters are evergreen species that originated in Asia.

While some people see beauty in the lavish leaves and gracefully segmented stems, others see bullies blithely crowding out native vegetation.

"I've seen it pop up in people's driveways," Audubon Borough Commissioner Jon Martin says. "It's worse than a weed. You cut it down; it grows back."

The 1.5-square-mile Camden County borough is home to about 8,700 people, many of whom live on small lots.

"We've had a half-dozen or so complaints from different locations in the last five years," says Audubon administrator Dave Taraschi.

Along Lafayette Avenue, near the borough's border with Haddon Township, a recent bamboo resurgence inspired Lobascio to advocate for municipal action.

"I didn't want to be invaded," says the grandfather of three, who shares a tidy bungalow with Elda, his wife of nearly 67 years. "Somebody had to take the bull by the horns and get an ordinance into effect to protect people."

Lobascio served on the borough council from 1977 to 1986 - he left office because of a cancer diagnosis - and hadn't been to a borough commission meeting in years until he showed up earlier this year.

He urged the commission to adopt a bamboo control ordinance similar to one approved last year in Gloucester Township. A similar measure is under consideration in Ocean City.

Both ordinances prohibit property owners from planting bamboo (and a number of other invasives), and also require that existing bamboo plants be "contained" to prevent the "encroachment, spread, invasion or intrusion" onto neighboring ground.

None of the ordinances require residents to remove bamboo already in their yards - only the stuff that shows up on a neighbor's property after the regulations become effective.

And while bamboo can be tough to dig up, it can be killed by commercial herbicides. Consistent snipping of new shoots also works (eventually).

There are plenty of incentives to do so in Gloucester Township: Fines for violations can reach $500 a day.

"People asked for the ordinance, and it seems to be working fine," Mayor David Mayer says. "There have been a few violations, but nothing significant."

Ocean City will hold a final vote Sept. 25 on its proposal. In Audubon, where a final vote is set for Oct. 7, Taraschi says Lobascio's advocacy "absolutely" helped put the issue on the radar.

"All I did," says Lobascio, "was what I thought was the right thing to do."