Digging with a shovel around the plant is one method to control bamboo.

You want to do it in the fall though not the spring. If you do it in the spring the runners may already be viable and you will be helping the plant spread.

My experience with the dwarf or groundcover running bamboos is that once established, they spread like greased lightening! I'd be a bit nervous to let them loose without physical containment in any average sized garden, even with the root pruning technique to attempt to keep them controlled. I grow mine in containers (great garden accents in the right place) and divide the plants as necessary. Also cut them back in early spring to rejuvenate the foliage.

Maybe bamboomary will chime in with her thoughts - she has considerable experience here :-)

Yes, I'd like her opinion. I've been growing this in a container for 3 years and it isn't at all happy. Looks quite ugly. I can give it a bigger container and try that. Perhaps given my confession of being a lazy gardener I'd better keep it under control. Thanks for the advice. If I do decide to put it into the ground, I would certainly root prune in the fall.

Hi Dotty
I have one dwarf bamboo in the ground that I let wander through a persicaria with red blooms. I control it by rhizome pruning. I usually prune whenever I get around to it, be it spring or fall or if I see new growth popping up, I deal with it then. I haven't noticed that it spreads any faster if I do it in the spring. The BEST time is about the end of October so you won't be surprised by new growth in the spring in places where it is not wanted :-D. Different dwarf bamboos are more rambunctious than others, yours may be one of them. If you have lean rocky soil that doesn't hold water it will run but I doubt you will end up with a nice looking plant. Bamboo likes good rich soil like you would grow vegetables in. Regarding rhizome pruning, the main thing is to actually DO it.
If you want to keep it in a container and it is really root bound, you could divide it. Take an old saw and simply cut it in quarters or thirds and repot it in new soil. Have you ever cut it back in the spring? This will promote new growth and your plant will look new and fresh again. It is a grass after all. Another point to remember is that in the winter, the abundant foliage doesn't allow adequate rain water to reach the soil so although we had a wet winter your plant could actually be drought stressed. That in addition to being rootbound in a container during the cold will severely stress the plant! I'll check back if you have other questions, good luck.

Thanks for the good advice. I bought this one to grow in a pot as a present for my daughter. It has never acheived a state that I would be pleased to put it anywhere as an attractive plant! There is no point for me to plant it in the poor soil I was thinking about, so I have got a bigger pot, pruned off the roots that were circling the old pot, Trimmed off all of the poor growth on the top and replanted it in good soil with manure. It's its last chance. I always like B. and thought it was easy to grow but for 3 years this one has been sulking and looking thin, half dead and ugly. If it perks up I will post a pic. Thanks again. Dorothy

Hi Dorothy
At some point you would want to divide it because the old rhizomes will be 'spent.' Rhizomes and canes only live 5 - 10 years and won't produce much if any new growth. New rhizome growth is needed for the plant to keep on living, kind of like some ornamental grasses that die out in the middle and continually expand on the outer perimeter.

I have a large bunch of bamboo next to the fence, thanks to my neighbor. He claims the only way to stop it is to did down 3 plus feet and put a metal sheild in the ground, he did that on his sid of the fence, but never offered to do it it the bo he started in my yard. I have just been mowing it down as it spreads into the lawn.

Don't EVER quit mowing LOL!!!!! You might consider digging a 12" deep trench on the fence line and sever the rhizomes heading into your lawn, then KEEP mowing. This way you might starve out the rhizomes that are in the lawn now. Every time new growth is cut (mowed) it stimulates other dormant buds and they try to grow. You will eventually exhaust all of the viable buds along the rhizome and it will cease and desist! This will take some time however, depending on how long it has been growing. It will only work if you sever the rhizomes from the mother plant.