There is an article about bamboo in the latest (December) issue of Horticulture. Running bamboo is the bamboo that you DON'T want to plant (author of article has NEVER seen a barrier that could effectively contain it) but clumping bamboo is ok.

The little potted bamboos called lucky bamboo, heavenly bamboo and trailing bamboo are not bamboos but respectively a dracaena, nandina and a turf grass.

Ahhh yes... as somebody that has spent a lot of time and effort in an attempt to eradicate an out of control patch of running bamboo I can say that a lot of adjectives have come to mind but "lucky" and "heavenly" were not two of them!!!

Have you tried looking around the bamboo forum for information?

- Brent

We have bamboo growing in our yard too. I mostly like it, but I have to admit, there have been times when I fully expected to see a frond of it poking through my living room carpet ready to grow. The stuff is TENACIOUS! It actually tunneled through part of our hot tub. It pulled up part of a brick patio too.