Forsyth County, GA Invasive Plant Rules: Bamboo Restrictions (2026)

5(B)(7) of the Unified Development Code names both Nandina domestica, listed by its common name sacred bamboo, and Phyllostachys aurea, listed as golden bamboo, an aggressive running bamboo species, on the prohibited planting list for the Coal Mountain Overlay District. The overlay covers properties on the county's Official Overlay District Map in the Coal Mountain community of northern unincorporated Forsyth County, and the ban applies to new construction and substantial improvements reviewed under the overlay's site design standards, on top of whatever the underlying base zoning district otherwise allows.

Landscape plans for the overlay go to the Planning and Community Development Department for design review under Sec. 4, and Sec. 5(B)(8) requires certification by a registered landscape architect, certified arborist, or registered forester at the time the landscape plan is submitted, plus a contractor certification that the plant material actually installed matches the approved plan; both certifications must be on file before the county will approve the as-built drawing or final plat. Because Phyllostachys aurea spreads by underground rhizomes and can escape a planting bed into neighboring yards and rights-of-way, grouping it with sacred bamboo on the same list targets both the ornamental shrub sold under a similar common name and the true running-bamboo species that causes documented property-line disputes elsewhere in Georgia.

The prohibition is prospective: it stops new plantings reviewed through the overlay's landscape process, and it does not itself require removing bamboo already established on a lot outside that review.