Cold Hardy
Bamboo Nursery
We grow over one hundred species of bamboo, most in multiple plantings. It is a beautiful and magestic plant and has many uses in the landscape. However, bamboo has many other uses. In fact it has been utilized in many parts of the world for thousands of years for everything imaginable. We will list many here and add to them over time. The links in this page will take you to pictures, examples, and how-to articles.
In
the past bamboo was central to life in many cultures. This was especially
true in Asian countries. A Chinese farmer may have lived in a bamboo house,
sat in a bamboo chair, and eaten food stored and prepared in bamboo containers.
He may have used bamboo mats for flooring, beds, and covers. His sandals
would have been made from bamboo and his hat woven from split bamboo. His
livestock would have been in bamboo cages and pens and a bamboo fence would
have enclosed his yard. The shoots of his bamboo might make up part of his
meal which was eaten with bamboo chopsticks. A fisherman might use a raft
made from bamboo that used bamboo for it's sails and ropes. Tools would
have been made from bamboo or used bamboo as handles.
Today things have changed but bamboo is still
used in the same way in many rural cultures. Hundreds of new uses have been
found for bamboo. No other plant has impacted so many cultures in so many
ways over such a long period of time. This page will grow over time as we
explore the ways bamboo has been used in the past and it's changing role
today.
| Landscaping
- There are hundreds of nurseries around the
world specializing in bamboo. Landscaping with bamboo is 99% of my business!
The vast majority of customers want bamboo to use as a screen. This
may be for privacy, to block a view, to cut down on noise or simply
to provide dramatic beauty in the landscape. Small, dwarf bamboos are
used as groundcovers, slightly larger bamboos make beautiful hedges,
and the larger species make beautful specimen plants in the garden.
There's nothing quite like a grove of giant bamboo with towering canes.
Walking through the grove is an experience few will forget. There are
many places in the US where bamboo has been used in the landscape. Besides
the locations listed here some others include
Fairchild Gardens in Miami, Fl. and Quail Botanical Gardens in LaJolla,
Ca. Shelter - Everything from simple sheds to complex buildings have been built with bamboo. Bamboo may be used for the entire structure, for walls alone, for roofs, for floors, for most any part of the house structure. Bridges - Bamboo has been used to bridge everything from small streams to big rivers. These bridges may be as simple as a few pieces of bamboo placed across a stream up to complex truss bridges, to suspension bridges using bamboo rope. Fences - There must be hundreds of kinds of fences built from bamboo. The Chinese and Japanese have taken this to a high level of art. There are multple books about bamboo fences with with information on techniques and tools devoted to the craft. Fences range from simple lattice, to woven panels, to living walls. Fences made from bamboo may be used for privacy, for decoration, to contain livestock, as guard rails, to block unpleasant views, for every use imaginable. Building a bamboo fence can be quite simple or extremely elaborate. How to build a simple bamboo fence. Music - Bamboo has been used to make music since humans first began to make music. Probably as percussion instruments first, but over time almost every type of muscial instrument has been made with bamboo. Flutes, panpipes, saxophones, digeridoos, xylophones, marimbas, whistles, wind chimes, pipe organs, gongs, rainsticks, and the list goes on! Construction - Domes, tea houses, roof tiles, gutters, ladder, concrete reinforcement, scaffolding, pergolas, temples, gazebos, shade pavilions, garden trellises, scaffolding, towers, churches, barns, pig pens, fish traps, piers, retaining walls, chicken pens, play structures, ladders, shelves, most anything you can think of. Bamboo flooring has become one of the most popular "hardwood" flooring products on the market today. "Plyboo" takes the place of plywood. Furniture - Beds, chairs, tables, stools, book shelves, desk, bread racks, folding chairs, chest of drawers, wine racks, clothes racks, cabinets, lamps, chests, coffee tables, benches, work benches, any piece of furniture you can think of has been made of bamboo. Boats - As a boat lover this is one of my favorites. Bamboo rafts are probably some of the earliest boats ever. With hollow, watertight compartments bamboo is a natural choice. But over time the ways bamboo has been used for boats has expanded. Chinese junks used bamboo for mast, booms, oars, rails, woven into sails, push poles, ropes, outriggers, etc. Several years ago Tim Severin built an entire boat of bamboo to try to prove that the Chinese may have crossed the Pacific hundreds of years ago. Over a hundred years ago Fridtjof Nansen was marooned in the artic and used bamboo poles and sail cloth to build a kayak to save himself. The Japanese used split bamboo to make a basket like boat for fishing. The Vietnamese make a type of boat from plaited bamboo. In ancient Polynesia the people built big catamarans using bamboo for mast, shelter, rails, floors, and as containers for fresh water. In modern times bamboo has been laminated and used for surfboards and modern boat construction. Bamboo and food - Of course most bamboo shoots can be eaten and in times of massive flowering of bamboo the seeds are used as grain. But besides being a food item bamboo has been used (and continues to be used) in the kitchen. Just a few uses include, cups, bowls, place mats, chop sticks, egg beaters, tea whisks, forks, knives, spoons, canisters, rice cookers, salad bowls, napkin rings, and just about any other kitchen utensil you can think of! Rice is steamed in the sections of cane. Salad bowls are made from thin, woven strips of bamboo. Woven screens of split bamboo or used in rice steamers. Miscellaneous -, airplanes, arrows, fishing poles, fly rods, bee hives, books, buckets, bean poles, blow guns, charcoal, paper, books(some of the earliest known books were written on strips of split bamboo), pens, baskets (every kind imaginable), beer, walking sticks, birdhouses, bird feeders, bows, fountains, bicybles, swings, carts, kites, windmills, jewelry, toys, hammocks, all kinds of containers, back scratchers (I've got one of these and it works great), cannons, carrying poles, crutches, curtains, cribs, cables, charcoal, candle holders, water pipes, oil pipes, tobacco pipes, dirigible, fans, firewood, flag pole, fishing floats, jewelry, kiosk, lanterns, light bulb filiment, bats, writing brushes, wheelbarrows, windmills, scoops, netsuke, polo balls, pole vaulting, paint brushes, umbrellas, rakes, rattles, record needles, concrete reinforcement, rulers, sandals, scoops, back scratchers, shoehorn, sieves, skewers, snow fence, stilts, tipi poles, toothpicks, torches, walking sticks, waterwheels, torches, towel racks, bird cages, curtains, rakes, mats, vases, flooring, hats,plywood, and more.
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