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Bamboo: The Viable Alternative
NOTE: The following story was written by me, Fred Hornaday, in May 2007, as a publicity piece for Bambu Batu. At that time it appeared in a number of local publications. We re-published the article in November 2022 for nostalgic purposes. Suddenly it seems like...
Phyllostachys viridiglaucescens: Green wax bamboo
For those of us who don't live in a bamboo haven like Thailand, Brazil, or somewhere else near the equator, the genus Phyllostachys is the group of bamboo we are most familiar with. This category of cold-hardy, running bamboo includes species like Moso, perhaps the...
Solid bamboo species: Pillars of strength
We typically think of bamboo as the woody grass (in the family Poaceae) with hollow stems. This is one of the notable characteristics of bamboo that makes it relatively easy to recognize. But there are a few varieties of solid bamboo whose stems, surprisingly, are not...
Best varieties of bamboo for a hedge or screen
Bamboo can serve many purposes in a garden setting. It's a wonderful ornamental plant with abundant, green leaves and elegant, upright canes. Some types of bamboo make a good ground cover and some timber varieties are great to harvest for their massive poles. There...
Bamboo Species Identification: A gallery of grasses
It begins with the realization that "lucky bamboo" is not actually bamboo at all. And then they tell you there are two kinds of bamboo: runners and clumpers. But then you discover that there are more than 1,200 distinct species of bamboo, plus a few hundred cultivars...
Bamboo Symbolism in Mythology and Folklore
Here at Bambu Batu, our lives are literally filled with bamboo. It's on our minds, it's in our mouths, it's in our gardens, and we wear it on our bodies. You might say our lives are imbued with it. No doubt, we spend plenty of time talking about bamboo, writing about...