I know a couple of guys with bamboo and it can get invasive. When they cut if back, it left some sharp stuff behind.
Were they trying to make booby traps
A webpage packed with general info regarding running bamboo is
Bamboo growing habits Needmorebamboo,inc has alot of info for us northern folk who want to grow bamboo. There are some varieties that clump, rather than run(such as fargesia robusta, fargesia rufa). Also, there is a native bamboo that many like to plant in the landscape(Arundinaria gigantea; including cold-hardy cultivars 'macon'
\'hoosier\' )
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Bamboo, such as a genus as phyllostachys, are quite vigorous. So the right location plays a very important role. A common name given to bamboo is damnboo. What happens is a person plants running bamboo in their backyard and the rhizomes run into the neighbor's lawn. If one knows the behavior of the running boo, then they can manage its vigor to their tastes. There are some people who are known to have 20+ bamboo in their not so big yards. They simply dig a shallow trench around the grove and rhizome prune it once or twice a year.
The vigorous behavior is what attracted me to this great plant. On the farm, its vigorous behavior is more of an asset, rather than liability. What I would love is to find some bamboo that could remain evergreen in the iowa winters here. I hope to find a bamboo species that can attain 30+ feet x 2" diameter culms. The one that is most likely to be the greatest height in my climate is
phyllostachys rubromarginata Growing bamboo in northern climates is still somewhat unexplored. I've just started to try many species in hopes to find the best for my area.
Some of the most cold-hardy ones are alot of times the most vigorous, also. Regarding invasiveness, it is only locally invasive where one plants it. Bamboo seeds only once every few decades to even longer than a century, depending on what species it is.
