I'm in north Florida.
Bamboo has proven to be extremely easy to grow in this area, but honestly the Phyllostachys varieties tend to do well even further north. Not sure how well they would do further south with warmer temps, but I would suspect they would do OK. My favorite is Phyllostachys vivax. Easy to establish, and it gets HUGE. I have some shoots that are about 6 inches in diameter and the culms are around 50 ft. tall.
They do need a fairly regular watering cycle, as they are a pretty thirsty plant.
You propagate them by digging out part of the rhizome with a single culm (stalk) which you normally take in February when it is dormant. Keep the root system WET during the transfer, put it in the ground, and give it plenty of water for the first several months to get it established. After a few years, just stay out of the way...
I have another thread here with a video I took last year walking through my several bamboo groves located here ->
http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/foru...d.php?t=388155