Thank you. I was planning on planting them about a foot or so away from the fence. The length of the shed is about 15 feet.

If its a sunny area its hard to beat the bamboo as a screen. The website "tropicalbamboo" (its a nursery based out of Loxahatchee) has a good listing of all the clumping types that do well in Florida. You have plenty of options based on where you live including those with Blue, Golden, Lemon, and variegated stems. Another one to look at is Dendrocalamus minor 'amoenus'

So, do you hate your next door neighbor, or are you friends? Unless you don't care where it goes, planting it a foot away from the property line is a huge mistake. Any of these bamboo plants will crawl under the fence and encroach into his property. You either need to leave yourself enough room to maintain it away from the property line, or bury a barrier to keep the culms from getting too close to the property line. Most of the ones we have talked about will make a 4 foot diameter clump in 2-3 years. Believe me, once you make a mistake and later on have to fix the problem, it is a huge job that nobody wants to deal with.

Thanks, plantsman56. We are friends and I would like to keep a good relationship. I am glad I found this forum as I was under the impression that the clumping bamboo would not encroach. I have seen pictures of slender weavers used alongside a short wall which added to this assumption.

The bamboo has the added gift of a lovely rushing sound when the wind goes through it. But- if you don't want a jungle that won't go away overtaking your yard- sink deep planter troughs and plant the bamboo directly into them- or they WILL spread through the root and run amuck. They are almost impossible to control once spread.

Clumpers just spread more slowly, depending on the type. The gracilis is one of the tightest clumpers I have seen, but the clump will still get 4 inches wider every time a culm on the outside comes up. The roots on a bamboo plant are not much deeper than a foot, so they don't go past walls with deep footers. If this is something you will want to have forever, I would dig a 4 inch wide trench about 24-30 inches deep, and fill it with concrete, and you will never have to worry about it going that direction. Sound like a lot of work and cost, but it is nothing compared to having to make the clump smaller some day in the future. About 15 years ago, I planted 3 cuttings of Buddha belly bamboo in a 25 gallon container. The roots grew out the holes in the pot and today the clump is about 15 feet thick.

I'm in Lakeland, 2 miles off of I-4, if you would like to see what these different types look like full size and not just in pictures, let me know and come over some time.

Buddha belly is beautiful, it is incredible how large your clump got! Thank you very much for the trench idea. I can build a trench next to the fence so any growth won't damage the wood or go into their property as well as another one running parallel that is a few feet away.

I was also thinking of graceful bamboo:

http://beautifulbamboo.blogspot.com/2011/03/graceful-bamboo-bambusa-textilis.html

Would the gracilis or graceful bamboo be able to live in a large concrete planter?

Thank you again for your help with this.

The Weaver bamboo you mentioned in the first post is the exact same plant, just by a different name, which is also what I was talking about in my first post. It IS a good choice. I would buy a 25 gallon plant or two and just saw them up into pieces and do your whole job. As long as the planter is wide enough, it would certainly work. 18 inches wouldn't be good for the expending culms, but you could get away with about 3 feet, and 4 feet would be great. Keep in mind you also have the arching look of the culms so anything a foot away from the property line are going to be laying on the structure next door.

The Buddha belly bamboo is way too big for your application, but you can come over and dig up all you want for free. I have a huge clump I need to be totally gone, and when I have the time, some year, it will all get destroyed.