so many varieties!!!!

I need help choosing a bamboo to use as a privacy/sound screen for a highway that i live near.
I live above the highway and look down on it is the Taller the better.
I live near pittsburgh, so that is zone 6b (minus-5 to 0 degrees) or zone 6a (minus-10 to -5)
the area i am planting i can let the bamboo run as it will be contained by the roads,
It does get a significant amount of wind and we do get snow here.
The only other thing worth mentioning is that i won't be able to baby this bamboo as it will be in a area that is difficult to get to.

i was thinking atrovaginata? anything that seems to fit better? taller? more cold hardy?

scott

In your growing zone, I'd recommend Phyllosatchys Bissetti. It is one of the cold hardiest runners available, they make good screens and are easy to grow.

There are a few others that may be as hardy, but none of them look as good at the end of the winter, more likely to have wind burned leaves.

Welcome to the site.

Hi scott and welcome!

A road by itself will likely NOT contain phyllostachys, especially if you have a vigorous and tall growing variety.

Here is a link to a previous thread with some pictures as well http://www.bambooweb.info/bb/viewtopic.php?t=597

Deep, water filled trenches are one natural way that can contain phyllostachys.

All the best,

Nicholas

I read the link Nicolas posted, and it may be true in some areas, and if road bed was not laid properly, but I have bissetti and aureosulcata, another aggressive runner, that is contained by mere gravel driveways it has been butting up against on two sides for two decades. In one case, it is a drive I built myself, it is just stone dust on a road hardener bed, with gravel spread on surface. No shoots have ever come up in it, let alone the paved highway they send roots toward.

One reason not to plant too close to road it that snow/ice events can lean the shoots over and into the roadway. This is a pain if it is your drive, or your neighbor's and you are obliged to clear it for them. It is not as much a problem on the public road in my case, as a mowed shoulder is maintained.

Don't let them scare you, bamboo is a very good highway screen and has improved the quality of life on my property immensely.

thank you all for the input....i will look into these suggestions!!!