I am in zone 6b and I have some black bamboo growing that was planted from the previous owners. It doesn't seem to spread too much but they have grown pretty tall, probably about 8 ft tall and about 1 1/2 inches thick. They seem to be doing well from what I can tell. I moved to this house 8 months ago so I really don't know much about them. I haven't done anything with them except add some mulch in the fall. We had a real mild winter this year but we had a cold spell where it got to 0 and one little blanket of snow. It doesn't look like the cold we had made much of a negative impact. I have another type of green bamboo that grows shorter but seems to spread a bit more. Not sure about eating them either.
