Chris wrote:

The temperates (runners) will do well, but will be invasive. You
cannot train bamboo with a spade, you just make it mad :-) If it is
in a grassy area and your neighbor doesn't mind you can easily control
runners with a lawn mower. Just mow while the shoots are just popping
through the surface, they are soft and the stumps will rot and go
away, if you wait until the reach any decent size they will start to
harden and the stumps will stay much longer.

Good screening bamboos are in the Phyllostachys family, P. Aurea is
probably the best in your area, but it is a very vigorous runner, but
it meets your other size requirements.

Thanks for the information. It sounds like I will have to dig down and
provide a good barrier to the rhizomes to keep spreading down to a
minimum. That means I'll pretty much be digging out the area that they
will be planted in and can put whatever soil is best once I have the
barrier in place. Any recommendations as to ideal substrate when starting
from scratch like this? I want to give them an ideal medium and I'm also
willing to water often to encourage the bamboo to quickly become
established. I've got fishtanks, so I have a great source of moderately
high-nitrogen water to keep them happy. I've heard they like a lot of
organic material like manure, etc.

If you haven't checked out http://www.bamboogarden.com/ yet--you should.
They are in Portland and have some excellent pictures of many species on
their great website.

Thanks again,

Jeff Dantzler
Seattle, WA