In my experience, people who warn most strongly about planting bamboo are usually "experts" who have never grown any themselves. Bamboo can be invasive if you plant it and ignore it for 5+ years and never try to control its spread, but there are easy ways to deal with this.

You can put barriers in the ground, although I've never known anyone to use steel, which will deteriorate in the ground unless it's stainless. There is a special, heavy-duty, hard plastic called bamboo barrier that is sold for the purpose. However, I have over 60 bamboo and am not about to dig moats around that many plants. I practice rhizome pruning, which is nothing more than chopping off wayward runners in the fall if they go outside the area I want them to, or simply chopping a perimeter all around the plant if you can't easily detect the runners. Runners usually travel close to the surface and are generally easy to spot. If you chop off the runner before it gets established (which takes months), it will die in the ground and not regenerate. Since mine are in discrete locations and not around many other plantings, I tend to pull the chopped off rhizomes out of the ground after I amputate them just in case they've been there a while. Some people will dig a foot-deep trench around a bamboo grove and fill it with mulch or sand. That makes it easier to detect most of the rhizomes that are striking out (although some may occasionally dive deeper than this). I had a grove of running bamboo at another house for over 30 years, in a warmer Zone than yours and it never got more than about 10' wide in all that time; and I never did anything with it other than to take a small division occasionally for a friend. I've also had a plant send out a rhizome 10'-12' in one season in a different location. Growth pattern will depend on species chosen, soil, water, and light.

Alternatively, you could choose a clumping bamboo that is hardy in your area, like one of the Fargesias, and you'll never have to deal with traveling rhizomes.

Thank your friends for their advice. Then ignore them, go get the bamboo of your choice, and plant it and enjoy it.

If you are rural enough and don't have to worry about the neighbors, are prepared to dig vigorous/aggressive and far-reaching rhizomes out of the ground on a yearly or biyearly basis (and in the process destroy your lawn), and don't mind the boos crowding out surrounding vegetation--then plant away and create your grove. I would suggest that you NOT ignore the advice of people who have found running bamboos to be maddeningly invasive and high maintenace to control (without the installation of professionally-designed/installed rhizome barriers). I have done yearly proning and its still out of control. Don't get me wrong--I love bamboo, but they really can become a nuisance and perhaps a legal liability in more crowded suburban areas. I am currently planting clumping boos only in the ground and am keeping the runners under control (hopefully) in containers.

Boy, I LIKE your response! Everyone has gotten me 'freaked out' about growing bamboo. You make it sound like something reasonable-- you CAN deal with.

I KNOW Bambooo is what I want... I need the 'quick' privacy option, and I also need the 'light conrol' (I'm a pro photograper) but everyone was telling me containing it would be an issue! I recently planted about 15 'Golden Bamboo' rhizomes, getting ready to plant more... but everything I read was scaring me a little. I live on a 3/4 A lot, and this backs up to two neighbors chain link fences. I planted them about 18" (yep, inches!) from the chain link... thinking I could control it by simple mowing. Am I right? Do I need to installl the barrier system IF they are regularly mowing (they do).

Thanks much for ANYONE's input... before I get scared of Bamboo and start digging it out of the ground (I just planted!)

Here is a link that might be useful: http://blackwellphoto.com

Obviously, my 'pleased response' was to 'Kudzu', who made it seem as though a yearly 'inspection' and routine maintence is all it would require to keep it under control.
THANK YOU ... I WANT Bamboo, and you're telling me what i want to hear :)

Err... I'm a little concerned about that 18' (yes, inches) barrier I left between the bamboo I've started and the neighbor's chain link fence)

Here is a link that might be useful: http://blackwellphoto.com

Thank you everyone for your advice. I can't believe the postings came back so quickly. I appreciate it. I can't wait to plant my bamboo, or 'boo' as everyone is saying. Ok thanks again.

danisusie-
Yes, 18" is a little close because the rhizomes can easily travel more than that. However, if you're vigilant you should be able to keep it under control. If it were me, I'd see if rhizome pruning twice a year (early and late fall) worked for the situation. If it keeps escaping, you could put in a barrier later. It's not like waking up one morning and finding that the bamboo has overwhelmed your yard and eaten your poodle. I have hard pan about 6" down and can't get thrilled about the idea of digging a 30" deep trench. So far, rhizome pruning has worked for me. My view has always been: if bamboo are as aggressive as many people think, there wouldn't be room for people in Japan!

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but here is my personal experience with bamboo. I lived in a house in Richmond VA (zone 7) about 8 years ago that was surrounded by a forest of bamboo. I have to say that it was beautiful. It stayed green all winter and it was like a tropical oasis. I'm sure it took a long time to get as thick as it was. Here is the problem. There was also bamboo growing along the side yard next to the driveway. Every year several stalks of bamboo would grow up through the asphalt and we would have to whack them down. The rhizomes spread under the driveway and came up in the shrub beds next to the house. We would have to whack those every year too. It was easy enough to control but a definite nuisance. You whack the unwanted stalks a few times and that's it until next year. If we had stayed there we definitely would have tried that plastic bamboo barrier along the driveway.

We just moved into a new house in Ohio and as luck has it, my neighbor has a small grove of bamboo along her fence between our lots. These are small city lots so it will never be like the bamboo oasis I once had, so I'm not interested in letting her bamboo come over to my yard. Last year I had to knock down a few stalks...no big deal. Today, I was digging a hole next to that fence to plant a nice shrub and what do you suppose I found? A very inconvenient bamboo rhizome that I'm sure planned to send up some stalks this year.. As long as I live here I will be knocking down bamboo every year. Eventually I will probably put in a barrier.

Bamboo is great in the right circumstances. However, as much as I loved my bamboo in Richmond, I would never plant it again because of how easily it proceeded to wreck our driveway. Be extremely careful about where you plant it. The stuff is invincible.

i bet in every 'bad' bamboo case the grove was allowed to get out of bounds before control attempts were made and in those situations control is a nightmare and it will come up everywhere. people should not plant bamboo unless they are willing to rhizome prune BEGINNING IN YEAR 1! it can be very simple to control as kudzu points out, if the grower is diligent from the beginning and every subsequent year. barriers are not the end all as they can & do fail. your neighbor should do the work if it is their bamboo but if they are too irresponsible then sadly you will have to do the pruning. as long as you don't let the invading rhizomes establish shoot in your yard - ie. kick them over or cook them, you should be all right just keep an eye out for all of the shoots and whack them.

Once again, thanks all for your info. I want to make sure I understand correctly. The 'shooters' will be above ground? So, if I go down my little 18" path between the neighbor's chain link and my bamboo, and knock them down a couple of times a year, I should be able to see them and control them? Another question, it's Golden bamboo, and someone told me it wouldn't be quite as vigorous of agrower in my Kansas area. Is this true?
BTW, when I was asked to put in my URL, I didn't realize it would show up on my posts. I'm embarrassed I wasn't trying to promote MY business!

no, no, knocking the new shoots down on your side will not prevent them from popping up in the neighbors yard since you're the one who planted the bamboo on your side, they need to knock them down and you need to prune with a watchful eye having such a narrow band to prune!

the rhizomes will surely run under the fence and several feet beyond into the neighbors yard. without pruning, if you merely kick over shoots on your side that rhizome will still be connected to culms in your yard, those culms will continue to provide the rhizomes with energy and the rhizomes in the neighbors yard can produce shoots that you won't kick over. when you prune, you sever the rhizomes in your neighbors yard from the culms in your yard and deny them an energy source. the severed rhizomes may have enough stored energy to produce some shoots but if those are mowed/stomped that rhizome will run out of energy and rot away. keep in mind that a rhizome that is not allowed to produce a culm to provide energy for it, will die off. if the neighbor allows any culms to establish in their yard then the trouble begins as they have allowed the rhizomes to establish an energy source. with no culms rhizomes die off, with culms they spread then begin to take over the planet.

Thanks, Inversa... Thanks All!

I'm thinking I'll plan on putting in a barrier in a year...
Just to be safe :)

All your opinions and advice is greatly appreciated.

i can see both sides..kudzu you know me and i respect your views but bamboo can be invasive..im not sure where 'winday7'lives but in the se/usa boo in z-7 can be a monster as the cold does not really get to them as it does in z-6 ...i like many experts don't have faith in barriers as ive seen them breach all so far..18" is imho looking for trouble for bamboo 'can'but not always send a shoot as far away as it is tall then..i don't use barriers as the cold winters inpead its invasive nature should somewhat.I own bamboo_world (group in yahoo)and am the ABS/SEC president and have 55 kinds of bamboo growing...i think a moat around a grove works best..talk to ian connor,adam turtle and other and they will say the same.

mike turner in sc has worked hard at makeing many runners into acting/looking like clumpers but controling/removeing the shooting rhizomes.

on a 3/4 acre lot id keep far away from your fence line

There are so many choices of clumping bamboo that any gardener would be happy with. That's one way to avoid the invasive problems. Another is to not water the area surrounding the stand. I planted a stand of black bamboo 18 years ago and it has stayed in a 4 foot diameter circle without straying simply because I deny it any water along the outward edges and I tend it by thinning out the dead stalks. I've been growing various kinds of bamboo for over 40 years and I consider golden bamboo a weed. As with any gardening, choose the right plant that suits your land and purpose from the beginning.

If you have at least 20 feet between your grove and the thing your worried about, like your neighbor's property, driveway, etc, then it's REAL simple, just knock down the new culms that pop up in that 20' buffer. I've done this for years without incident. I suppose it's possible that a runner may breach the buffer eventually, and if so, then I'll deal with severing the lifeline. Until then, I've controlled four runner types -- yellow groove, rubromarginata, nuda, arrow, in the manner described. Does not take much time at all and, if anything, I'd like my groves to spread faster. I also agree that the fright mongers have probably never grown boo themselves, and most don't know what they're talking about -- of course I wouldn't grow boo in a small suburban lot, but I also wouldn't plan a pine or spruce tree that will grow to 50' on my property line, next to my driveway etc. Just use common sense.

I have a bamboo barrier installation party planned for March 13th so I am doing some research and came across this thread. I live in the Salt Lake valley UT. We have very hot dry summers and cold dry winters. Lots of snow, but mostly powder.

I planted two running bamboos (beautiful bamboo, and black bamboo) last summer in an area with a 85 foot circumference surrounded by lawn.

I ordered 85 feet of 60 mm bamboo barrier with a metal bracket to connect the two ends. I am having a bunch of family over to help dig the trench for installation.

My plan of control is to not rely on the barrier alone but also trim rhizomes every fall that get close to the barrier and thin the grove annually as it gets thicker.

Keep in mind I am a very OCD gardener. I rarely go more than two days during the growing season without doing some yard work. It is very much my full time hobby from March to Nov every year. So I have no doubt the groove will not be left on it's own to do as it will.

My biggest concern with it is the west side of the area is about three feet from the next door neighbors yard. With the barrier and my control methods I think I should be fine, but was hoping for an experts opinion.

You will have no problems, and, yes, you are being a little OCD about this. Even if a rhizome got through the barrier AND you missed it with rhizome pruning -- a highly unlikely event -- it's not a big deal. It would make its presence known by sending up a shoot, and you could remove that and the rhizome and restore order. Bamboo does not regenerate in the ground from fragments of roots left behind, so removal of an escapee ends the problem. Once you've had the bamboo for a couple of years, you will see that its urban legend scariness is over-rated.

Thanks for the reply Kudzu.

One more question about the barrier installation. People mention installing it at an angle. I get that it forces the rhizomes upwards. Is inalling at an angle a must. It would be much harder for us to do so.

Thanks!

It's not absolutely necessary to install it at an angle, and it's difficult to do it when you are going around a curve because of the geometry. Your main concern should be to simply get the bottom of the trench to be flat and at a uniform depth. It helps if you make some cheap gauges for your diggers: just two pieces of scrap wood in the shape of a "T", where the part below the crossbar is the depth you want and the crossbar itself simply rests on the top of the ground when you get down to the right depth. Once you get the barrier placed you may have to make some adjustments to the bottom of the trench so that the barrier is sitting uniformly. Then start backfilling on both sides of the barrier, and do not throw any rocks back in as these can damage the barrier. As you are filling and packing the dirt in, you should be able to get at least the top portion of the barrier to lean out a little bit. Once everything is filled in, you can go around the whole thing with a box cutter or similar and cut the excess barrier off at a height you like above ground level. I usually try to cut it off within an inch of the ground, but do what you are comfortable with.

I love Kudzu9's advice. I have clumpers but have been holding off on planting the runner, which I am going to do now. Just to be on the safe side, however, I'm not going to get a poodle.

I heard from a buddy that someone he knows planted running bamboo next to their house, and the rhizomes grew under the house, where it waited all winter and spring. Then they had a heat wave, and, after a particular hot day, they came back to find their caged pet bunny rabbit dead, impaled by bamboo that had shot up through the floorboards in the intense heat.

JK