On a hot day there are a lot worse places to be than within a bamboo grove.
You can bring your Zen songbook and chill out.
I recommend such visits if your locale is short on meditative space. My personal preference is a grove of Sheoaks as you get more wind ambience through them.
The whispering...
But then my bamboo visit today was about harvest.
A feral stand of running bamboo accompanies my local railway line and I've been visiting this noxious weed space over the past 5 years in order to harvest canes for odd jobs. This species is not the best quality cane to be had from these grasses, but I can still get 18 months out of a harvested bundle.
Bean poles. Trellising. I also use it for canoe masts and curtain cranes.
Canes as cranes....
Given that I have a range of Summer time legumes, choko and yam vines on the go, I'm planning to take my garden skywards on bamboo lifts.
Since I live on sand which doesn't hold a pole vertical too well I've learnt that the trick with bamboo 'uprights' in the garden is to first ram in a metal pole -- like the 1 metre long segment rods you get for tents -- and lash the bamboo cane to that.
I get a supply of these metal things from my local tip. Totally recyclable in a way that wood is not in the garden.
Works a treat. Just ram the bamboo cane into the soil a little bit -- then lash -- and that way you get less rotting at the stem edge.
After a short time in the grove, I came home with 20 canes.
HARVEST with a pruning saw. TRIM with secateurs. CUT to standard lengths.BUNDLE with ropes. TRANSIT on top of the car.
The more I have/the more uses I seem to find for the canes.
Happy fella.
Ommmm....
