Yes bamboo can be very aggressive and will completely take over your yard (and your neighbors) if left unchecked. Lots of examples of this all over our neighborhood.
However, there are two main types of bamboo varieties; running and clumping. Typically, when we think of bamboo taking over, we are thinking about running varities. These types of bamboo can shoot out canes 7-12 FEET from existing canes and grow very very quickly. Clumping varieties only put up new canes inches from existing canes, and have a much slower growing pattern.
In our yard we used Alphonse Karr, a clumping bamboo. This has been installed for almost 7 years now, and as you can see… it’s not taking over at all.
Our house backs up to a creek that essentially serves as a drainage dich for a large commercial and industrial area just west of us. Because of this we have major flooding and errosion issues. In the first two years we were here, we lost about 2-3 feet of the creek bank just beyond the fence. We decided to add in bamboo along the fence line for its dense fiberious root system as a defense against the erosion. And it’s worked out great!
