A re you establishing a new garden? Are you trying to bring a long neglected or difficult garden back to life again?  read more »

Well, dear readers, you may as well know the truth. This post was *strictly* supposed to be about my continued adventure with bamboo, but something got in the way. Yes, the rose fairies, and there you have it. I’ve said it straight out. What’s a girl to do? I tried to tell them this space [...]

Besides the outdoor garden, I like to keep a variety of houseplants. Presently, more than half of these are orchids. Contrary to popular opinion, orchids are not hard to keep. However, buying a variety of orchids is hard to do when the nearest center with an orchid club and decent nurseries is a 4 and 1/2 hour drive away.

A Phalaenopsis getting ready to bloom again. I just propped up this flower spike with a bamboo stick, though I really wish I had more stylish supports for my orchids.  read more »

Today's email has an interesting question. "We want a fast growing privacy hedge. Someone said grow Bamboo. It was suggested to us that you can grow this down to -32, and colder if you winterize it."  read more »

more about Bamboo..

Most grasses and grass like plants thrive in containers and raised beds, bringing colour and movement to patios and your garden.
Many Bamboos also look good in pots and confining vigorous species in this way limits their spread.
Toronto area:
In our sometimes very cold climate planting is recommended.
Bamboo F. nitida,
Bamboo F. robusta,
Bamboo F. murielae  read more »

I love to write and well, as you could guess, love bamboo plants. I'm merging those two passions into a new e-newsletter I am sending customers of my small bamboo nursery and those that have been "bitten by the bamboo bug" and just want to learn more about bamboo.

My strawberries have stopped producing berries and now have started send runners all over the place. During the berry growing season I would pinch them off to let the plants use their energy creating delicious berries. Now those runners are not really doing any harm I have decided to let some of them live and propagate them into some small plant trays.

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A few sore muscles and a couple of blisters later, my dad and I finished two raised planter boxes and planted four types of bamboo on their three acres in Grass Valley, CA. Although I do live on a larger-than-normal suburban lot, I do not grow running bamboo in the ground (I like to have neighbors that like me). So, the offer was made by my parents to use the land they have and I took them up on it. There is enough water and enough room for them to grow.  read more »

It is called the "poor people's timber" and even in China it is not accepted as a modern building material. But bamboo, like lumber, makes a light, flexible house that is much better than "modern" materials at surviving earthquakes. Now International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR) is actively promoting it as a replacement. "So far, massive construction or reconstruction means concrete structures in China, and bamboo is little known for this [building on a large scale], says Shayam Paudel, INBARs director of bamboo housing programs, in the Christian Science Monitor. Unlike the "Tofu" concrete structures that collapsed and killed thousands of kids in substandard buildin...  read more »