I've found that a pickaxe blade is better at chopping through rhizomes than an axe, and a demolition bar is essential for prying, especially to avoid breaking shovels. However, if you want to make your life a lot easier and be able to take out any bamboo in a minute or two, there's no substitute for a bamboo spade. There is only one place I know you can get one, and I never thought I'd ever pay this much for a fancy shovel ($160), but I fell in love with it the first time I used a friend's, and immediately ordered my own. This is a shovel that is all steel, weighs about 20 pounds, and operates on the slide hammer principle. It not only works great on bamboo, but on any other large rootball plants like shrubs and giant grasses. I have no connection with this product other than my close affection for it. Here is a link that might be useful: Bamboo spade

That is a very nice job! Since you didn't show photos of this part, how did you connect the barrier ends? I know some places sell a stainless "clamp" that gets screwed on, and some places sell a double-sided tape. I'm just curious which you used. Also, I suggest next year that you bend the plants over to the ground and tarp over them for the winter. That will keep all green leaves and give them a faster size-up. Finally, once your plants green up via new shoots/leafs or by leafing out on the existing culms, please post a follow-up photo. It's hard to find photos of bamboo grown in colder places (I think I had the same low temp in St. Louis as you did this winter) where there's total leaf loss, then showing how the plant came back the next year. Seeing that sort of thing would have made me much less nervous during my bamboo's first winter. =)

Inversa is correct however, I have dug them when they were shooting and the plants are still doing good. It just takes a much bigger rootball and good luck not breaking the new shoots. But Inversa is also right it takes a very long time for them to recover. I have even dug bamboo in the middle of January and it's just fine. But these were cases when the bamboo was going to be bulldozed and I was actually saving them so it can be done but the plants will suffer greatly and may take a couple of years to recover. If you buy plants in the pot already you don't have to wait. And they will not suffer from transplant shock. If you do dig the boo anyway make sure you take a pick axe and dig a 1 ft deep trench around the clumps you want then cut the roots underneath with your shovel. This is the easiest way to do it trust me. I have taken out 10 groves so far. This is by far the best way. But be careful I have broken about 30 shovels so far even some of the best shovels are nothing to break digging bamboo. It is very hard work no matter how easy I make it sound. Good luck and keep us posted.

Kudzu - if he won't deliver that far, I'd be willing to ship it to you if you'll pay the postage ;) I remember about 3 years ago I ordered 8 mail-order Nuda. Just before they arrived I hurt my back and did not feel up to planting them where I wanted them, so I put them in a temp spot that was easy digging. The next spring I proceeded to dig them out and transplant them. Every one of them had at least 6 rhizomes going 10-12 feet out in a wagon wheel pattern. It took me 2 hours to dig out each one, as I was trying to keep as much rhizome intact, as possible. Last summer I saw an Aurea shoot coming up WAY out from the mother plant that had been there 2 years. I carefully got underneath the wayward culm and walked it out of the ground all of the way back to the raised bed border, where I snipped it off. I stepped it off at 18 feet of rhizome! This was 1 seasons growth. I chopped off the 3 feet of rhizome tip with no viable buds and then somehow, for some reason?? I planted the culm and 15 feet of rhizome in a 20 gallon pot. This year you'd never know how much rhizome is coiled up in that pot by looking at the few, short culms. Next year, I bet it looks like a jungle in there. Now I need to find a new home for it, as the dang stuff doesn't appeal to me in this climate zone.