11/13/2016
Welcome to Jungle Jacks bamboo. The write up below is written by
a lover of all types of bamboo big and small.
BAMBOO IN YOUR GARDEN TO SAVE THE EARTH
BY: WALTER BARKER
Like a miracle the shoot came from the earth at just the right time.
Within a week it was already 3 feet tall and breaking toward the thick green canopy above looking to poke itself through, and above,
to find it's brilliant place in the sun. Within 2 months the shoot was 5 inches in diameter and 50 feet tall. So it is with large timber varieties of bamboo. There are over 12,000 varieties of Bamboo (a giant grass) both large and small. Bamboo is the 2ed fastest growing plant on the planet; only sea kelp has a faster rate of growth, and that is why it has caught the attention of ecologists and friends of the earth around the globe. it has sustainability!! It is able to be grown quickly, used for a variety of purposes, and can replace itself again very quickly.
Bamboo is an internal part of Asian Cultures and permeates every part of everyday life. It is used as a resource for shelter, eating, kitchen and table ware, weaving, livestock food (20 percent protein),irrigation and erosion control, medicine, decoration and crafts, and spiritual practice.
Western culture is becoming aware of the many positive benefits of bamboo not only from the beauty it brings to our gardens but in addressing the ecological threat of the greenhouse effect and global warming. Bamboo's thick leafy canopy is a great carbon dioxide absorber as well as an oxygen generator. The trees we are loosing in the Amazon take decades to centuries to grow, and the loss of all this leaf surface can be counterbalanced by growing more bamboo with it's astounding growth rate. Sustainability!!
Bamboo is a beautiful plant with a wide variety of sizes, colors. textures,to choose from. It can create moods in your garden from the dramatic to the spiritually sublime. You can use it to create scenic privacy from one and two story neighbors, or to block views that are not pleasant from your surrounding area. Many feel a spiritual vibration around clumps of bamboo and create private sanctums for their prayer and meditational practices. In selecting Bamboo for your garden be sure to get the clumping varieties that are easily controlled. The running varieties will spread and take over your whole yard if a barrier system is not used. Also make sure for Central Florida that you select clumping varieties that are freeze resistant to the cold we have in the winter.
Like a miracle Bamboo shoots into our ecological consciousness at just the right time. It's shooting up and through the clutter of our carbon based culture to find it's place in the sun as a healing element for our earth by it's qualities of beauty and serenity, as well as it's renewability and sustainability. Like a miracle Bamboo transforms our gardens and our minds to see a better way.
