Octavio Cordero

Saturday 9am. A random block in Buenos Aires, Argentina. This waste of water would be ilegal in most other cities. Here, it’s tradition. Opinions?

Me pregunto si las otras mansiones de estilo de Av. Melian piensan que esta es la grasa de la cuadra.

You planted this bamboo yourself. With enthusiasm. For a screen. Within two years you regretted it — and within five you understood you could not go back. Running bamboo (Phyllostachys and related genera) is one of the most frequently self-inflicted garden disasters in Britain. The gardener plants it voluntarily, pays for it, and then pays considerably more to try to remove it. What the garden centre tells you: fast-growing, evergreen, architectural, forms a screen in two seasons. All true. What the garden centre does not tell you The rhizomes of running bamboo (Phyllostachys, Pseudosasa, Sasa, Pleioblastus) spread laterally through the soil at one to two metres per year. They do not grow downward like normal roots — they run horizontally at 15-30cm depth, in every direction, under the lawn, under the border, under the patio, under the neighbour's fence. Every rhizome node produces a new culm that emerges without warning — in the middle of the lawn, between paving stones, through a neighbour's garden. In three to five years, a bamboo planted as a three-metre screen has rhizomes occupying 50-80 square metres — the entire garden. In ten years they reach neighbouring gardens, irrigation pipes, house foundations, and drainage systems. Cutting the canes does nothing Bamboo cut to the ground regrows with more vigour than the year before. Every cut stimulates the rhizomes to produce emergency culms. Cutting weekly for an entire season does not weaken the root system — it causes it to expand faster in search of undisturbed ground. Digging it out is a serious undertaking Phyllostachys rhizomes are as hard as beech wood, interlaced in an underground network extending in every direction. Hand digging requires days of work per square metre. Mechanical excavation must reach 50-60cm depth across the entire colonised area — and every rhizome fragment left in the soil starts again. A single forgotten node restarts the problem from zero. The root barrier The only reliable way to contain running bamboo is a root barrier — a sheet of HDPE (high-density polyethylene) at least 1.5mm thick, installed at minimum 60cm depth, surrounding the entire planting area before the bamboo goes in. The barrier must be continuous with no joins or weak points. It costs more than the bamboo itself. If it was not installed at planting time — which covers the vast majority of cases — it cannot be retrofitted without excavating everything. The distinction nobody explains at the garden centre Running bamboo (Phyllostachys, Pseudosasa, Sasa): rhizomes that travel metres from the original plant. INVASIVE. Never plant without a root barrier. Clump-forming bamboo (Fargesia, Borinda): rhizomes that grow as a compact clump without running. NOT INVASIVE. Fargesia is the correct choice for a British garden screen — it forms a dense hedge, stays where it is planted, and will not colonise neighbouring gardens. Eradication protocol For running bamboo already established, the method with the highest documented success rate is: Year 1: cut all canes to ground level in June — when the plant has spent its stored energy on new growth and rhizome reserves are at their lowest. Cover the entire colonised area with thick black weed-suppressing membrane, edges weighted or buried. Leave covered for the full season. Year 2: remove covering in spring. Cut every shoot that emerges immediately. Re-cover. Repeat through the season. Years 3-4: monitor weekly. Cut every shoot within 24 hours of emergence — a bamboo shoot left for a week is already a metre tall and has re-stocked the rhizomes. Consistency is everything. Alternative: systemic herbicide (glyphosate) injected into hollow cut stems immediately after cutting in late summer. The same protocol used for Japanese knotweed — to which this problem is closely comparable in persistence and difficulty. The most architectural screen in the street is also the most expensive to remove. Consider it before planting, not after.

Es un gran momento para recordarles que los balcones se calculan con una sobrecarga de 300 kg por metro cuadrado. Una maceta de 50x50x50cm pesa unos 40-160kg.

Men without degrees built this.

🇦🇷 LAS MALVINAS SON ARGENTINAS. MILLONES DE AÑOS DE EVOLUCIÓN GEOLÓGICA ASÍ LO QUISIERON 🇦🇷 Las Islas Malvinas no son un punto aislado en el océano ni una anomalía geográfica. No son un accidente más en el mapa. Son la continuidad natural, estructural y tectónica del territorio argentino. Por eso, el reclamo argentino no nace del capricho ni de la retórica: se apoya en una base física, medible y verificable. No es ideología. Es evidencia geológica. 📊🇦🇷 🌎 1. LA PLATAFORMA CONTINENTAL ARGENTINA 🇦🇷 Las Malvinas se apoyan sobre el Plateau de Malvinas. Un bloque de corteza continental que se extiende de forma continua desde la Patagonia hacia el Atlántico. No hay ruptura. No hay salto oceánico. Hay continuidad batimétrica, geológica y estructural. No es una isla oceánica: es una gran porción del margen continental argentino sumergido. 🛢️ 2. SON PARTE DEL MISMO SISTEMA DE CUENCAS SEDIMENTARIAS 🇦🇷 Las islas están integradas en un sistema sedimentario inequívocamente argentino donde la Cuenca de Malvinas y la Cuenca Malvinas Norte son extensiones de * Cuenca Austral * Cuenca San Julián Es el mismo sistema con la misma historia de apertura del Océano Atlántico Sur y la misma evolución tectóno-sedimentaria posterior. 🧱 3. COMPARTEN EL MISMO BASAMENTO CONTINENTAL 🇦🇷 Debajo de todo, está lo que no se discute: las rocas del basamento. Las Malvinas comparten raíces rocosas con los dos grandes bloques que conforman la Patagonia Argentina: * Macizo del Deseado * Macizo Norpatagónico Confotmados por rocas del Neoproterozoico y Paleozoico que formaban un mismo bloque en Gondwana. Antes del Atlántico, ya eran lo mismo. 🌍 🧭 4. LA TECTÓNICA LAS ATA A SUDAMÉRICA 🇦🇷 Estructuras sumergidas como: * Escarpa de Malvinas * Banco Burdwood * Banco Maurice Ewing definen un margen continental típico. No es un sistema oceánico aislado. Es litosfera sudamericana extendida. 🚫 5. NO TIENEN NADA QUE VER CON EL REINO UNIDO 🇬🇧 El Reino Unido está sobre otra placa. A miles de kilómetros. Separado por el Atlántico. No comparte: * basamento * cuencas * historia tectónica * ni evolución geológica No hay vínculo físico. Ninguno, ni por arte de magia. 🇦🇷 CONCLUSIÓN Las Malvinas son el resultado directo de la ruptura de Gondwana y la apertura del Atlántico Sur. Está más que comprobado que forman parte del mismo sistema geológico que la Patagonia y son una prolongación natural de la plataforma continental argentina. No es opinión. Es ciencia. Es geología. 🧠📊🇦🇷