Go with the Yellow Vivax. It is totally cool looking and down south
where you are it will probably be 60 feet tall yellow waxy culms with
green pin stipes.

Eddie wrote:

Hi everyone, I'm new to the group and am looking for advice.

I live in Los Angeles and my property is adjacent (unfortunately) to a
4-story apartment building nearing completion.

My back fence and the back fence of the building share a property
line, and instead of blue sky I now have balconies looking down into
my backyeard/pool area. I'm looking for some privacy or coverage, and
someone had suggested timber bamboo.

I don't know anything about timber bamboo, and my major questions are,
how high can it grow, and is its coverage just vertical, or will it
have any density horizontally?

Are there pros or cons to timber bamboo in anyone's experience?
Thanks for any advice/insight/help that anyone can offer.

I think timber bamboo would be a good screen, but it does have some cons... First, it would spread agressively in LA. Your neighbors might have cuase to sue you if it invaded their annoying appartment building lawn, etc.

If you rent a trenching tool and invest in a deep bamboo barrior for both your side and your neighbors, it could be sweet. The stuff runs $2/ft. so with the trenching tool rental it will ad some $. Plus, you will want the screen as soon as possible, so you will probably want some big plants... Fairly expensive, but a good solution if you can afford it.