Ridgewood, NJ Invasive Plant Rules: Bamboo Restrictions (2026)

Section 260-5, titled "Other restrictions," sits inside Chapter 260, Tree Protection, Removal, and Replacement, readopted 4-9-2025 by Ord. No. 4043. Most of the subsection's other clauses are expressly limited to the public right-of-way, such as the bans on nailing signs to trees (Sec. 260-5B), fastening ropes or cables to trees (Sec. 260-5C), and stringing decorative lights on trees (Sec. 260-5I). Subsection H breaks that pattern: it prohibits "the planting in the Village" of running bamboo, known by its scientific name phyllostachys aureosulcata, or any bamboo of that genus, without confining the ban to the right-of-way, meaning the prohibition reaches private residential and commercial land throughout the Village.

Ridgewood targets running bamboo specifically because its underground rhizomes spread aggressively past property lines, unlike clumping bamboo species, which the ordinance does not name. The Village folded this ban into its tree ordinance rather than a separate landscaping chapter, alongside other plant-health rules such as the requirement to eradicate tent caterpillars and gypsy moths through a licensed pest control firm (Sec. 260-5A). Because Section 260-5 falls within Chapter 260 as a whole, the chapter's general enforcement and penalty provision in Section 260-11 applies to a bamboo-planting violation the same as it would to an unpermitted tree removal.