Growing Bamboo on Gardening Australia

I do not have much information myself on growing bamboo - though I do have some growing in my home, and was very interested to hear the ABC program Gardening Australia today, and a segment on growing bamboo with presener Josh Byrne in Western Australia.

There are many growers of bamboo in Western Australia and the story featured is about one near Albany, on the south coast.

You can watch the program and read the fact sheet here.  I note he speaks of four Australian native bamboos but most of the material I have read gives different numbers.  This article written in 2007 talks about 3 native species which grow in the Northern Territory and Queensland.

This article also talks about 3 native species.

I recall when visiting Geikie Gorge in Western Australia last year that the indigenous guide who took us on the dusk tour through the amazing gorge and he told us that the "bamboo" in the photograph below was a native bamboo.  I have been told by bamboo people, that it is not a bamboo, but a grass.

Is this a native bamboo?

View of Geike Gorge with "bamboo" beside the rock face.

Australia Zoo and Bamboo.

It had been a while since I had visited Australia Zoo, and I had not been out to the Asia section until a couple of weeks ago - in the pouring rain, and I did not take my camer.  However, I was back there last week, but my photography efforts were hampered somewhat as I had to grandchildren to keep an eye on.  They darted all over the place like a f...  (rhymes with dart).

There are quite a few stands of amazing bamboo, especially around the tiger exhibit.

This is in the tiger area, but where we were sitting the reflection from the glass made photography too difficult.