Is green bamboo good for building?

A visitor to our website wrote:
I love your website! I have a question. You mention that you have green, just cut, bamboo. Can you actually make fences, etc from green bamboo or do you have to wait for it to dry out? I’m just thinking that if I buy and plant bamboo, I’d like to know whether I could build furniture with it as soon as it’s tall enough. Thanks!

My response:
Freshly cut bamboo will turn tan as it dries and it dries rather quickly, usually within a few months. It can certainly be used for building when green but, like any wood, as it dries, there is shrinkage. If you use freshly cut bamboo canes you'll need to factor that into your calculations.

Bamboo orchid hangers

A customer in Florida wrote:
Thank you so much for the nice bamboo poles which I received today, and for the two extra poles especially. They are just perfect for my needs!

As I promised, I will take pictures of completed orchid hangers and email them to you.

I am glad that I found your business through Google.

What can you make out of bamboo?

Bamboo poles are frequently used to build wedding arches, trellises and tiki huts but that's not all they're good for. Below are a few of the many creations built by our customers. If you have a bamboo creation you'd like to share, email me a few pictures and description of your project and I'll add it to the blog.

Natalia, an orchid-loving customer from Wesley Chaple, FL, used bamboo as a base for her plants:

For mounting orchids I drilled the poles and put 16 gauge galvanized wire. I formed hooks by myself. Then I used thread (cotton) to fix orchid moss and coconut fibers. That was it. As you see, this is a very simple construction.

Dave Schmid, carpentry foreman for the Freeman Company, emailed photos of a booth commissioned by Tata Consultancy Services that included a number of our freshly cut bamboo poles:





Amelia Island customers, Chris and Dick Modie, emailed to say:

We thought you would like to see our handy work!! The live bamboo is doing great too.

Below are photos of the beautiful outdoor shade room Dick and Chris constructed from a combination of bamboo poles, 1/2" diameter bamboo roll fencing and reed fencing.



Two views of the shade room as viewed from the front.





The roof was made out of two different lengths of 1/2" bamboo roll fencing (4' x 6' and 4' x 8') supported by a framework of 2" and 3" diameter poles.



The end view showcases the reed fencing stretched and supported by 2" and 3" diameter bamboo poles.

Another customer, Fred Partin writes:

I thought you would like to see how we used your bamboo (2" half rounds) to go with our new Chinese chairs in living room.



David Marshak constructed a wedding chuppah out of 3" uprights and 2" horizontal poles:



Greg Lorentz built this tiki-style bar for his deck:



Michael Ryan creates beautiful cases out of bamboo to hold his handmade seashell flutes. Learn more at his website Seashell Music



This is an upstairs room in our house where we've covered a knee wall with reed fencing and trimmed it out with 2" half-rounds.

A customer wrote:
Hi Sherry, it was great meeting you and Ralph yesterday. Dianna was so right to get different varieties to plant around the property! The giant timber looks so cool.. I love it. We have a spot for every one of the bamboo we got and planted 3 of them last evening. I dug a huge wide and deep hole to plant the big bamboo and filled it with 2 large wheel barrels of mulch. Here is a pic of it.



I poked out the piece of dry bamboo and made a didgeridoo it sounds good but i think i need to get the tube cleaned out a little better to make it sound louder.

Thanks, Doug and Dianna

My response:
I'm glad it worked out so well. Remember that even after the bamboos are planted, you can always apply top dressings of organic matter (a good use for all of your horse's manure) around the bamboos. You will be seeing lots of new shoots emerge over the next few months so take pictures now when they're relatively small or you won't remember how they looked. Thank you for choosing Beautiful Bamboo and have fun watching your baby 'boos grow!

How fast does bamboo grow?

People are always asking us how quickly bamboo grows. Below are photos sent from customers in the Orlando area whose objective was to create a perimeter privacy barrier in front of existing fences. See for yourself how quickly a landscape can change less than a year after planting bamboo.



Green Hedge clumping bamboo (3-gallon size) planted 4' apart in May 2008.



11 months later...where did that fence go?



Same property - another location. Same type of bamboo, same size container planted the same distance apart.



11 months later - after only one growing season - the white fence is beginning to disappear behind a screen of green bamboo.

A visitor to our website writes:
Hello Sherry, I am working on a project in which the homeowner found your website and loves bamboo. She wants to use it along a chain link fence to block the neighbors unsightly landscape, the width between the chainlink fence and the house is only 6 ft wide, she would still like to use the area as a pathway from the front of the house to the back yard. Which variety do you recommend to use? The length of the fence to cover is 40 ft. How much would you recommend to use for this length as well?

My response:
I would suggest Graceful, a very upright growing clumping bamboo. In a 40' length she would need anywhere from 4 to 10 plants depending on how quickly she wants to form a solid hedge. If she went with 3-gal size plants planted 4' apart in enriched, irrigated soil the fenceline will be completely blocked by the end of the summer. If she went 8' to 10' apart, it would take two to three years worth of growth before a solid hedge formed. Graceful is a delicate looking bamboo with canes a bit over 1" in diameter that will grow about 25' tall at maturity. By the end of summer expect the 3-gal plants, which are now about 6' to 8' tall, to just about double in height.

From our webpage:


After only one growing season, these two Graceful bamboos planted 4' apart are now touching. When first planted, each bamboo only had one cane and were half as tall as they are now.

GRACEFUL BAMBOO Bambusa textilis gracilis
Can grow 20-25 feet with 1¼" diameter canes.

A very handsome plant with few branches on the lower part of mature culms so the beautiful canes are visible without pruning. Graceful Bamboo has a soft, gentle look that is never overpowering. It is an excellent choice for narrow spaces or smaller yards because of its upright growth pattern. Proven to be one of our most popular bamboos, Graceful works well in city as well as country settings.

See for yourself how fast bamboo grows!

The three Seabreeze clumping bamboos above were planted 5' apart in May 2008 from 3-gal size plants. The hedge is now approximately 14' tall. When the bamboos were first planted in May, each plant was about 6' tall and only had one cane. When they were planted, the three Seabreeze looked similar to the two Seabreeze on either side of the sign pictured below (click on image to make it larger and easier to see):



Keep in mind that the bamboos in the top photo have only gone through one growing season. As the weather warms this spring, summer and fall, many new shoots will emerge growing to be taller and larger diameters than the existing canes. By the winter of 2009 our demonstration hedge will have formed an even more solid wall of green than it already is. By the same time, the bamboos in the photo below (which were planted in January 2009) will have gone through one growing season and will look just like the hedge pictured in the top photo.

How much is too much fertilizer and mulch?

A customer in Orlando asks:
I’ve been reluctant to put down a lot of pine bark so as not to interfere with new canes coming up. Am I being too careful? Inasmuch as I planted the bamboo November 1, am I being too careful in waiting til May 1 to apply Dynamite again? I don’t want to over-fertilize.

My response:
About the Dynamite, there's no need to fertilize again until May since the beauty of a time-release formula is that it emits a slow but steady amount of fertilizer over a six month period. As for the mulch, you can place a light mulch around the plants at any time. The new shoots will push through the mulch with no trouble. As the plants mature, you can add a thicker coverage. Mulches help plants retain moisture while reducing competition from weeds and adding some nutrients to the soil.