Bamboo in Soft Winds - Day 36 - Daily Haiku

Bamboo in soft winds
Nature's most soothing sound
along with the birds

Cori MacNaughton

One of the things I miss the most about our house in Largo, along with our chaya bushes and our dog Sprinkles, is the giant bamboo.

Planted by the previous owner, some twenty years and more before we bought the place, it was a living, breathing natural wind chime, home to a myriad of overwintering birds, and a source of a great deal of peace and pleasure for me. The sound of the bamboo in the wind was nearly a hypnotic sound for me, similar to the sound of boats' rigging at their docks, and a source of all things good.

Although technically a timber bamboo, the bamboo we had there was technically not a true giant bamboo, as the culms topped out at a bit over three inches in diameter, and between thirty and forty feet tall.

Contrast that to the true giant bamboo I encountered in Puerto Rico, when my friends and I took a day trip to El Yunque, one of the few mountains in the Caribbean tall enough to make its own weather. I still have a photo of Cathy and Cindy, standing next to a huge clump of bamboo that was at least eighty to a hundred feet tall, with no exaggeration required. It was massive.

I've written before about my Cambodian neighbor, Sonian, who used to get my permission to dig newly sprouting bamboo culms a couple of times a year, and the fabulous chicken soup that resulted, which she was kind enough to share with me.

I haven't written previously about my occasional frustration with the bamboo, which came up wherever the heck it wanted to come up, which included inside my greenhouse once, which got interesting when it grew tall enough to joust with the clear polycarbonate roof.

Of course, it was not quite the hassle of the raccoon some months earlier, that evidently tried to jump onto the greenhouse roof, only to crash clear through it. Trying to replace that panel, which had been adhered with marine adhesive 5200, was a serious pain.

And when I was a kid, I remember my mom telling me of a family friend who got irritated when his neighborhood made him take out a plot of wildflowers he had planted in his front yard, insisting that he plant grass like everyone else.

His response was to plant a bamboo screen that grew roughly thirty feet tall, and they couldn't do a thing, because bamboo is, technically, a grass. Take that. ;-)

Of course, if they had had any brains at all, they would have celebrated and encouraged his wildflower garden, and more of us should be encouraging native wildflowers in our own yards. But this was the sixties, and they were people with a tiny amount of power who, rather than using it wisely, chose instead to abuse it. Sigh.

Anyone who knows me knows that I love plants, that I love growing things, and that I love to try new and unusual varieties, especially of food bearing plants.

And I absolutely love bamboo, which is, with the possible exception of coconut, possibly the single most useful plant in the world. Bamboo culms can be grown for timber in a single year, and it is perennial that sends out multiple such culms year after year, whereas a single tree grown to the same usable size can take fifteen years or more.

No contest. Bamboo is the clear winner from an environmental standpoint.

I'm looking forward to getting starts of some true timber bamboos - most of which are edible at the sprout stage - that will naturalize here. With 16.5 acres, which encompasses a myriad of different growing habitats, I have no doubt we will end up with quite a variety when all is said and done. Wish us luck.

All words and images are my own unless otherwise attributed. This particular shot was taken in my back yard in Largo, Florida, showing our giant bamboo, two large chaya bushes, our dog Sprinkles taking off to the right, and an otherwise lovely Florida day.

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