Usually, the more vigorous runners are also the hardiest.

A couple years ago in January, I purchased something labeled only as "Hardy Bamboo" in a local nursery...3 gal pot size (I know the lack of a name is not helpful...sorry).

I kept it indoors in a pot for a few months, then moved the pot outdoors in spring. At the end of that summer (Nov.), I planted it next to the corner of my house, on the shady side & where it would get little rain under the house overhang.

It stayed there over winter, and all of next summer. That August, I dug it up...and it had half a dozen 5ft. long runners (rhizomes) radiating outward in every direction...under the sidewalk, back up under the house, etc. (this in about 9 months).

I planted it in the middle of the yard over this winter, and we shall see what it does (I buried the rhizomes).

So...I don't know much, but I know this - there is at least one variety that is not deterred by Zone5 climate.

there is a common misconception about bamboo spread in colder cliamtes and whittaker probably did not address this directly. the theory (that experience proves false) is that cold climate bamboo that gets topkilled often will not have the enrgy to spread much. this is not true for continental climate zones - rhizome growth occurs from july through september in continental zones and during this period the bamboo has already recovered with new culms and does indeed have energy to run. in fact, those continental climates that are rainy, hot & humid during this period will have substantial rhizome growth. you end up with groves of short bamboo.

in europe and other maritime climates the summers are not hot & humid enough for rhizome spread so even in warmer maritime zones the spread may not be great. note whittakers many pictures of phyllostachys that look like clumping bamboo. you will get more spread in indianapolis than in london due to the summers, not the winters.

Interesting... I rather suspected that a running bamboo would run! Whittaker's assertation seemed too good to be true.:)

It's okay, like I said I'm prepared to do root pruning, but I guess it would have been nice to think I had a little extra protection from being eaten alive by a vigorous 'boo up here in zone 5.

Can you tell I'm a newbie to runners? Still, this news does not dim my enthusiasm a bit...

well, if you have relatively mild summers there then you may still have reduced spread but if you are hot, humid and rainy for much of the summer then they will run.

I would never again plant a running bamboo into the ground. I am in a zone 7 with hot, humid summers, a long growing season, and heavy rain (or snow) throughout the seasons. I will moving in the spring and hopefully will be leaving the grove behind. Running bamboos are just so incredibly vigorous and aggressive they choke out everything else. I am sticking to strictly to tropical clumpers now (in containers)!

njoasis --
Presumably (hopefully?) my experience will be different than yours, since I am in zone 5.

Question -- did you root prune your bamboo? Did you find this to be ineffective in containing it?

Another question -- when you move, what do you anticipate telling the next property owners about maintenance of your bamboo? This is a concern of mine -- we won't live here forever, and while I'm fine with doing root pruning I wonder if other owners will do it? I would like to think that regular mowing around the bamboo grove would contain it, but who knows?!? I'd hate to drive by my former property some day and see it engulfed in 'boo. :)

Many years ago I planted three aureosulcatas in Z5. They all died.

You might be able to contain it for a few years but eventually the boo will just take over (at least in a zone 7) It gets downright frightening to watch those culms and rhizsomes grow so explosively (in height and DIAMETER)! It really is hard to keep up. I do find that if I hack it back some after its most vigorous spring growth (in April), I can keep it contained over the summer as growth really slows in high heat and drought. But the rhizomes are back growing in the autumn just waiting for the spring. It is just too much maintainance.
I plan on taking some root cuttings in April and cutting everything back from around the house (to the ground) and removing as many roots as I can. I will leave the grove in the back of the property. The lawn itself has never been great here except for a few weeks in the spring. I've managed to hold off the grove in the back with the lawn mower. I'll remove some of the Black Bamboo, and aureosulcatas and cutting from the vivax and viridis and grow them strickly as container plants (vigilantly guarding their excape from the container into the ground). Not to say they are not amazing and beautiful plants. We recently had a heavy wet snowfall and view outside in the early morning with the snow clinging to the branches was surreal and lush. In the winter, birds have also been coming to the grove to seek shelter. But now that the snows are melting, and the spring is approaching, I am seeing it again as a giant weed on steroids. My next grove will consist of clumping boos only (experimenting on some real exotics) so other plants have a chance and I don't have to worry about the new neighbors.

njoasis -- sorry to sound so dense, but I want to confirm that I am understanding your experience. Are you saying that you DO or DO NOT root prune your running bamboo?

I have heard from many reliable sources that root pruning should contain running bamboo, if done regularly. Most of my info says I can do it once or twice a year (in the fall, I believe).

Are you saying that this information is, in your experience, incorrect?

I bought what I thought was a p nigra 'henon' (also was zone 7!!! AUGH!). I kept it alive by mulching it and wrapping black plastic on it. I think it may be golden bamboo (zone 7 also) though, I think they gave me the wrong plant. Even when the culms die off, new ones come up in the spring. We are technically zone 6a/5b here, I have mine planted on a windy ridge that gets full sun. Right now they are looking pretty haggard, hopefully still alive though. We didn't get much snow cover either. I planted a #2 pot in '04, now it's run to about 5 or 6 feet so far, and is about 6 feet tall in some places. The most rugged ones I've heard of is the Fargesia variety (to -20).

njoasis,

If you need some help getting rid of your unwanted Bamboo let me know. I can come by with a couple of guys and give you a hand.

Jeff

Yes, I root prune but do you want to spend the rest of your life proning bamboo shoots. It's NOT the easist thing and you're constantly destoying your lawn and need to replant grass seed. If you're in a zone 7 and don't mind being surrounded by towering bamboo 12 months of the year (to the exclusion of other plants), and your neighbors are far, far away--then by all means plant the running timber bamboo. Just be VERY VERY SURE you know what you are doing. I don't know--maybe in zones 5 and 6 the giant runners behave themselves more. Here there is no winter die off and they are expanding on the previous year's growth. Here, they want to DOMINATE THE PLANET and truly become massive. PLANT CLUMPING BAMBOOS IF YOU HAVE ANY DOUBT!!! Fargesia are VERY cold tolerant (though most hate high heat). I will be investigating others in the years to come once I get into my new home.

Well, that *is* what I am asking about -- experience in zone 5. :)

Hopefully more zone 5 bamboo folks will be along shortly to share their experiences.

Hi Bonitapplebum,
I live in western Cleveland Ohio zone5 b and I have P.aureosulcata yellow groove bamboo. I dont have a barrier but I do prune the unwanted rhizome by digging around and finding the runner and pull up the runner like a zipper and replace in the direction I want it to go or cutting it and dumping the unwanted in the garbage. ( my neighbors dont get bamboo.) I dont have a problem that I know of. I started my small groove 3 years ago. I doesnt get too tall here yet and there is some die back but so far hasn't died. This year it was very cold and a lot of snow so I dont know yet if it has died. I know someone near me that has the same bamboo and they have a healthy sized groove with there culms are over 15 ft high and they come back after some whitening with winter die back. I'm going over there next week to ask how they prune. You can email later to ask what I have found out. I say go for it but prune back like Inversa said on (RE: OK, so root pruning is really hard and not that effective?).. An even easier way is to build a raised bed framed with timbers or stone, or just a mound of soil for the bed and you see most of the rhizomes peeking out the sides and you can snip them off, a few will get past but keep your eyes open. if a shoot comes up where you don't want bamboo then get rid of that section of rhizome. I think I would like to try that sounds like a good idea! Mzkrista

I am in zone 5 in CT and so far my bamboo has not been a problem. I have all runners 3 to be exact.I have fishing pole bamboo (not sure of its real name since we got it on our travels and that's what the man called it). We have another variety that has beautiful leaves , almost plam like. They are long and get thinner as they get further from the stalk. Then we got another kind last year from a fellow CT neighbor and don't know its name but they ahd a HUGE HUGE grove of it and lots of light.
We live in the woods and don't get lots of light. My bamboo is growing away from my house plus I planted it pretty far from the house. It's headed slowly towards the stream, which is good for us.
We've had one batch for 5 years and it makes about 4-5 new culms each year, that's it...not invasive by my standards.

At this time it looks wind blown and half dead but so far its come back every year. We buy burlap and try to make a little windn barrier for it but by March that cover is stamped to the ground and of little help.

I have an 8x60 foot bed with bisseti, aureosulcata, and atrovaginata. It took me three partial afternoons to rhizome prune in the fall. I don't bother pulling up the severed rhizomes as they don't have enough energy stored to stay alive. A key bit of advice I received was sharpen your shovel. It helps a lot.

In hot dry areas of California some people think they have clumping bamboos, but they are actually runners that don't get enough summer water to spread.

my grove of yellow groove is running like crazy in Muncie, Indiana. I started with several pots that I got from Brad at Needmore Bamboo in Brown County and it's taking over the planet around here. It runs at least 5-6 feet a year, usually in a direction I don;t want it to. So I dig it up, and pot it up and sell it whenever it gets too out of control. It's not too fun to dig though. The first couple of years I had a lot of winter die back, but it looks burnt again this year, but the stems are still green, so that means it'll regrow. I planted it in the fall, which is supposed to be a big no no too, but it did just fine anyway. We are in a cold 5 area, and usually get down below zero 2-3 times a winter.
I have learned if you mow it off, it keeps it under control around the edges.
If you need to know more, just e-mail me.

I live in SW Michigan and I have found a few groves of bamboo in our area. I was able to dig from one sight that had what I believe was yellow groove. It had spread out over about 1/2 an acre!!! The guy told me it had been there for 20 years growing, with no root pruning. They had grown to be at the tallest about 27' and 1 1/2" - 1 3/4" in diameter! Pretty cool stuff.
I dug up 10 different divisions and transplated them on my property. They were big rootballs like 4'x4'. They all turned brown on me in mid Feb. The roots are still alive though, because under the mulch the canes are still green as ever. At least I hope they are still alive!

I have Phyllostachys Aureosulcata in the ground here for 5 years. It runs about 5-6 feet per year. The grove is expanding fast, but the culms are rather smallish. Last year my biggest culm was about 10 foot high and 3/8" diameter. I'm hoping for something much bigger this year, but don't really know what to expect. Most of the info I've gathered from the web is for zones 6 or higher, which is not really useful to us confirmed zone 5ers. I water and fertilize generously every year, and mulch with about 2 to 3 feet of pine needles in the winter. I haven't thinned the grove much yet since last year all the culms above the mulch were completely dessicated. I think I will prune out the weak culms this year to open up the grove a bit.

I have a friend here in Fort Collins who planted several yellow groove bamboo (phyllostachys) and she says it is 9 years old and has not spread more than a few feet. She has enough property to manage this, but she told me that her suspicion was that in Fort Collins, the air is so dry, and the soil is such hard and compact clay, that the bamboo does not seem to be quite as aggressive.

I have planted phyllostachys atrovaginata (see my post with pictures on April 22 with questions about watering). I intend to keep posting updates when the plants start shooting etc.... so I will share how it is going with my own plants in zone 5.

Tom

I have what I believe is yellow groove in zone5, in Kansas City, Its in its second year in the ground. I transplanted some masses of culms I got from a friend neither of us are sure if its yellow groove for sure but from what I've researched it appears to be. The place I took it from was a medium size grove and it appeared to get about 15-20 ft tall and spread every year. I put in a heavy plastic rhisome barrier I got somewhere on the net, I think I opted for the 30" deep stuff. I put it in an area roughly 5' x 30' and about five groups of my transplants survived and shot some new small shoots last May. They were about 1/4" diameter and 3' tall. This past weekend I noticed it is shooting again, so far I have 9 poking through the mulch and I get two to three more a day it seams. I'll try to take a pick and keep you posted. I have noticed the roots did spread about 5' and a few came above the surface.

Jeradf,

I too live in the Kansas City area (Lenexa) and would like to discuss more about your experiences with your bamboo. Can you provide an update on how it has grown.