As far as I know, bamboo has no pests that do damage to the plant. I have been growing it for years and have dozens of varieties and none have ever had any type of pest. Even deer do not eat my bamboo although I have heard others state that deer will nibble on theirs.

Try one of the Bambusas.

Kt

In my experience, bamboos can have aphids, which do no real damage, and bamboo mites, which can damage the appearance of the leaves, but do not damage the plant otherwise. If I had to guess, I'd say that thrips are unlikely to be a concern.

Kentuck and Kudzu, thank you for your replies. Sounds good.

Kt, interesting that you mention Bambusas. I haven't done any research on type of bamboos, but am assuming that's a non running class of bamboos. I fell in love with Bambusa oldhamii seen at a San Antonio garden tour in September. Any comments on this variety? The home owner said her clumps were planted 2 1/2 years ago and had grown fast. She has an irrigation line running to them. I would suspect that bamboos would take a fair amount of water to get them started. Would you say they are fairly drought tolerant once established?

This will be my first foray into bamboos so there are lots of questions. One problem will be finding them. I don't remember seeing much offered at local nurseries, but maybe that's because I wasn't looking for them.

Here's a photo I took of Bambusa oldhamii. I loved the look of the canes and the tree shape. I'll be using them along the fence line. Any suggestions on varieties to watch for? It would be fun to have more than one variety.

Uh oh, just looked up Bambusa oldhamii and find it's a giant timber bamboo up to 55 ft tall and will only take temps down to 21. We get in the mid teens sometime plus I don't know if my 1/4 acre city lot will take that large a plant. The place where I saw them is in the down town area that stays warmer, although the yard wasn't very large.

Guess I have a lot of research to do.

I mentioned liking the tree shape of the bamboo pictured above, but if anyone wants to make some suggestions (which would be appreciated) I think I'd like an upright variety that doesn't get too huge. At this point I like the airy foliage and interesting culms of bamboo.

It is best, in my opinion, to buy from a bamboo nursery since I've seen bamboo for sale at Home Depot among other places, and it was mislabeled. You would not want to buy a running bamboo by accident.

Yes, Bambusas are clumping bamboos.

You need to decide on how much room the plant will have and how large of a plant you want. Bambusas height range is from 3 feet to over 70 feet.

Here, B. oldhamii grows to over 40 feet, but it is very erect/upright, so it does not need a lot of space.

Here is a pic of some oldhamii I had in 14 inch pots and the boo grew to over 22 feet.
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This is a pic of a hammock in between two oldhamii plants in my yard. The culms get just over 4 inches thick.
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Another tall Bambusa, and probably the most cold hardy, is B. textilis of which there are smaller varieties also.

In my yard, with vegetation competing for sunlight, B. textilis gets to about 45 feet but in the pic below where it is out in the open, it grows to about 30 feet max. This was taken during the drought but I did give it some extra water. Runners will not die in a drought, no matter how severe. Most clumpers will survive also, but die back. It depends on the type of soil you have the bamboo in as to how hard a drought is on the plant.
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Sunburst Bamboo is a smaller but very pretty bamboo but is still rare and can be kind of expensive. Look into Bambusa
eutuldoides 'Viridivittata' and Bambusa pervariabilis 'Viridistriatus'...two of my favourites for colour, striped leaves and are quite cold hardy.
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Click on the link below and scroll down to look at the Bambusas. It will help you narrow down which bamboos you like. To see pics, you can click on the second website. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and look for the bamboo of your choice and click on it to see several pictures.

Bamboo

Click Here For Pics.

Feel free to ask more questions.

Kt

Oh wow Kt -- thanks for all the photos!

Bambusa eutuldoides 'Viridivittata' and Bambusa pervariabilis 'Viridistriatus' are very ornamental and ornamental is what I'm into. But where to find them? I looked on line and see that Caldwell Nursery carries them. They don't ship, but shipping costs would probably be very expensive for a decent size plant anyway. I might check and see if a local nursery could order certain varieties with their spring orders.

Still have a lot of looking to do. Thanks for your help.

I bought mine from Tropical Bamboo Nursery in Florida, but I have had great luck buying bamboo from a few other bamboo nurseries also, such as Tradewinds Bamboo Nursery in Oregon. Both have websites that you can order from.

I generally order smaller plants to save on shipping and overall cost but the Bambusas seem to like it here and grow really fast to reach large size.

I just sold my last potted Sunburst Bamboo. It will be several months, or this time next year, before I will possibly have another(also B. eutuldoides). I have a waiting list for these two bamboos and my existing plants are quite depleted.

Kt

Oh, and a smaller variety of a bamboo with yellow culms striped with green, is B. multiplex 'Al Karr'. It is smaller than the other two mentioned but it gets the sooty mold sometimes which makes the culms look a little dirty but it is a more common plant and will be easier to find and cheaper.

Kt