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Bamboo Screens for the Garden

I have just returned from a very jolly trip to South East Asia. (Not that you would have noticed I was away: gardenersworld.com is such a slick and well-oiled operation that my blogs kept appearing, in my absence, as if by magic.) Mostly I was loafing around looking at things but, being a conscientious and dedicated fellow, I also kept an eye open for things that might interest you. Bamboo, for example.

In this country we most commonly grow the Phyllostachys bamboos, especially Phyllostachys nigra, with black stems, and P. aureosulcata f. aureocaulis. I have used them as screens, specimens in pots and in innumerable planting schemes. However, they are mere minnows compared to some of the Asian varieties that grow to 20m high with stems (or culms) as thick as my leg.

We drove through a village on the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam where they specialise in growing bamboo and every house is dwarfed by enormous stands of tall waving stems. It is used for so many purposes including baskets, pipes, fences, chopsticks, bridges, charcoal, boats, plywood, brushes, hats, musical instruments, furniture and fishing rods. It can be woven into cloth, the shoots can be eaten and it is even possible to make beer from the stuff.

However, the most dramatic example I saw was in Hong Kong where it was used as scaffolding around towering skyscrapers. It seems extraordinary that something as seemingly flimsy can be tied together with string to make something that will support the weight of people and materials hundreds of feet off the ground. There are more extraordinary examples here. I quite like heights but, in this case, sooner them than me!