Using clumping bamboo to control spread of running type?

[jayclev]

Has anyone been successful using a clumping type of bamboo as a border to control the spread of a running type?

Thanks.

[springtimeshoots]

Wouldn't they just tunnel under those clumping ones??

[Tarzanus]

I don't think that would work. Running bamboo could be less aggressively running through an established clumper defense, but some opportunistic runners would go through despite lack of water, colder soil and root crowd. And it would grow culms inside the dense clumper, most likely towering well above it. Removing such rhizomes would be impossible and even if you remove those shoots, running bamboo would just jump through clump an run further out.

[ShmuBamboo]

That will most certainly not work. I have many runners and clumpers here, and a Phy. aureosulcata Harbin Inversa ran a rhizome right under a large mature clump of Far. robusta like it was not there. I had to tunnel under it to dig out the rhizome, and in the meantime I cut out a bunch of the spreading robusta and potted them up. Clumpers also can EXPAND quite far from the original base. This year the scabrita 'ran' about 2 feet from home. Last year the robusta did the same thing.

Its a Fargesia INVASION! Oh no! More plants to sell in my nursery!