What are your winter time lows, and do you expect your bamboo to have leaves in the winter? There are some bamboo that are hardy to -20F, but they will suffer leaf damage and leaf loss at temperatures above that, as well as possible culm death (the root may stay alive). Your problem is less having a plant that will spread, and more of finding one that won't die the first year.

Hmmmm.... Winters are so variable here. Is prolonged low temps a problem? We may see an entire week with the highs aroud 5 degrees, and the next week will be in the 70's. Just back in December, we tied our 111-year record low of negative 19 degree's, so that's probably the absolute minimum.

Did you mean to say 'hardy to -20F, but they will suffer leaf damage and leaf loss at temperatures BELOW that'?

I don't expect them to have leaves in the winter, although that would be nice.

Thanks for your input.

Hardiness is the lowest approximate temperature a bamboo can survive for a short period - like a day or two - before the whole plant dies; and you will see aboveground damage as temperatures approach that. For example, a bamboo that is hardy to -10F might have leaf damage/loss, or death of the culms at 0F to 5F. So, yes, prolonged low temperatures are a problem. Your best bet would be a runner like Phyllostachys nuda, which is hardy to about -20F. A few clumpers (like Fargesia nitida and Fargesia murieliae) are also supposed to be hardy to that temperature, but my experience is that they suffer leaf damage sooner than the runners do.

Jagermeister,
I'm in Fort Collins. We're north of you, but also slightly lower in altitude, so I think it's pretty similar as far as cold hardiness.

I sympathize with your situation. Early spring 2 years ago, I bought 3 different Phylostachys 1 gallon starts from.... I think Bamboo Garden in Oregon. They are Nuda, Decora, and Yellowgroove.
The first year they stayed about 3 foot tall. Last year the yellowgroove and Decora got about 5 or 6 foot tall and kind of bushy, but they lean over and are kind of weepy. So the main part is really only about 4 foot tall but kind of leaning way out and over on the sides. Actually similar in shape, character and size to my well established asparagus patch. The Nuda is still small at 3'tall x 2' wide.
All three of these are supposed to get medium sized like what you're wanting, but in our zone, who knows. There are a few other bamboos in town, but I haven't seen any large ones. I'm hoping mine have some much bigger shoots this spring. My hope is that my children's plastic climbing castle will kind of get lost in the bamboo and be sort of a secret hideout for them in there. That's kind of what made me decide to give it a try. I'd visited the LA arboretum and the Huntington Library garden in LA area, and when walking through their bamboo, thought "how cool a place for kids to play".
They've started to spread. I see runners coming out into the lawn from them, which seem to be about the same length outward as the canes are tall. I just mow them over. They're surrounded by house on one side, garage on another, a very dense big thicket of blue spruce on the 3rd and my lawn on the fourth.
After seeing those runners, I would NOT think you would want to plant them along your fence unless you A.) you did some kind of serious barrier as is discussed in parts of this forum, or B.) convince your Neighbor to also be willing to regularly mow them down in his lawn but let them grow along the fence, or C.) if you hate your neighbor.
It seems like the hard winter is not slowing these guys up at all. 2nd summer they all came right back up, and most of the existing canes got new leaves on them. This past winter the leaves stayed nice and dark green right up until that nasty cold spell just before X-mas. Since then all the leaves died and have been gradually turning the same tan color as my lawn. Most of the stems and branches still appear to be alive though.
After reading up it seemed pretty unlikely any clumping varieties would survive here, so I didn't try any. However, there is one really big bamboo that's supposed to be good down to -5, and given how mine seem to be shrugging off the Colorado winter without much difficulty I'm thinking about giving one a try, just to see if it lives and if so, see how big it would get.

How high is your deck? The bamboo has been fun to try. I recommend it but you may well want to go with something else to block the view of your neighbor's yard. I've got some tall hardy pampas grass and Chinese silver grass for similar purpose and I've also done some vines, Virginia creeper, trumpet vine and honeysuckle on my 6' cedar fence. They all help, but if you don't want to see the guy next door nude sunbathing, or vice versa, then you're probably going to want to think about several types of trees, and tall bushes. The blue spruce seem great for completely blocking a view but time consuming to grow and of course they do get BIG. One of my neighbors topped his when they got about 18' tall. Surprisingly they've mostly just grown fatter since he did that. They certainly COMPLETELY block his view over his back fence.

If you ever get up to Fort Collins, drop me a line and you can take a look at the bamboo. Maybe it will be huge this summer. I hope so. I think there's some at the Denver botanical gardens, but I haven't seen them for years, so not sure how they're doing, or what variety.

Bruce

Too bad you want clumpers.... Like I always say, "share the love" and plant P Bisetti anyway! ;D Our neighbors are all freaks of nature so I don't worry about the boo spreading. :) Hey, they could always mow it, right?

Or maybe try Arundo Donax (sp?) It's not technically bamboo, but it grows sort of tall. I haven't grown it though.

mersiepoo-
Arundo donax? Please don't say that. It's an invasive weed. It's like bamboo with none of the benefits...