On this blog, it’s no secret that we love the bamboo plant; we mention it all the time. This time, i assumed that i might dive straight into what makes the bamboo plant so unique and special, from its crazy growth spurts – to its earth-healing abilities – to the various products it are often made into.

Are you able to determine everything you ever wanted to understand about this quasi-magical little plant? Good, because I’m dying to inform someone, and you’ll feel an equivalent as I treat the top of this text .

What is bamboo?

Bamboo may be a fast-growing grass with a hollow stem. it’s native to several countries and most continents with humid and tropical climates, including Asia (most notably China), Australia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South America.

There are over 1,400 species of bamboo worldwide, and surprisingly, all members of an equivalent species will flower at an equivalent time, regardless of what a part of the planet they’re in. Some scientists attribute this to an evolutionary “alarm clock” because the plant will flower no matter the environmental conditions it’s anesthetize .

How does it grow?

Bamboo is one of the fastest-growing plants on the earth, with some species can reach full maturity in only 90 days, and most taking just a few years. One bamboo species can grow a huge 35 inches per day (or 1.5 inches per hour). That’s a fact deserves a Snapple cap.

How can bamboo grow that fast?

Bamboo plants create all the cells they have to grow when they’re still little buds. Unlike in animals, these cells don’t need to split apart while growing; they streeeeetch out. The cells are crammed with water and causes them to expand quickly, sort of a balloon on a faucet.

This is common for grasses, and it’s why you would like to mow your lawn hebdomadally . But only reduce bushes every few months, and cut tree branches every few years.

Other fast-growing plants

Of course, bamboo isn’t the sole plant that will increase within the blink of an eye fixed. inspect this list of the fastest-growing plants on the earth. you would possibly even want to use a number of these in your garden for fast plastification!

• Poppies – are classified as weeds, but let’s face it, they’re the nicest looking weeds.
• Morning Glory – It’s a flower, not a wood.
• Sweet Peas – Perfect for the bees
• Castor Beans – These can get older to 10 ft in one year.
• Nasturtium – It’s great for natural pest control, so place near any fruits and vegetables.
• Evergreen Cherry Laurel – this will grow by 23 inches per annum.
• Cucumbers – Plant now for summer salads.
• Sunflowers – It’s no secret that these beauties increase over the summer months.
• Photinia – This evergreen shrub will provide beauty all year round.

The eco-friendliness of bamboo

Bamboo is one of the foremost eco-friendly materials on the earth thanks to how it’s grown, the tactic of harvesting, and the way it gets transported to your door. Some people try to background the greenness of bamboo to suit their ends, but we shouldn’t allow them to win.

Let’s check out a number of the ways in which bamboo is greener than grass. Get it? Because bamboo may be a grass… never mind.

1. Repairing Damaged Soil

Bamboo plants can grow in infertile soil, which probably has some complicated scientific explanation, but it seems like sorcery to me. When it grows in infertile soil, it provides farmers with an income (because they will now grow things where they previously couldn’t), and it repairs the land by making it fertile again.

How does it make the soil fertile again? The bamboo plant’s nutrient-rich leaves will drop off during growth or harvest and fall onto the bottom below, where they’re going to decompose and transfer those nutrients into the soil. Magic!

2. Countering deadly toxins

You probably know that each one of the plants functions as the lungs of the world. They absorb CO2 and release oxygen during photosynthesis, and humans and animals can breathe easier. But you would possibly not know that bamboo actually takes in 4 times more CO2 than your typical plant and thereby releases more oxygen.

Bamboo can even remove toxins from the world . Phytoremediation, which seems like a Harry Potter spell, is when bamboo removes lead and mercury from the world and traps them inside its stalk. After the stalk is harvested, rather than dying and decomposing, the toxins remain inside the stalk where they pose no danger to humans.

Plus, bamboo is grown without pesticides, so there’s no spraying of chemicals which will be hazardous to human health, unlike other plants. Thanks, bamboo!

3. A rapidly natural resource

Do you skills people are always saying that trees take many years to grow into forests? Well, it seems that trees take the higher a part of a century to mature enough to be hamper to be used as lumber for tables, chairs, floorboards, etc.

Do you skills long it takes bamboo plants to mature? 5 years. meaning that the plants being harvested now were only planted or last hamper in 2013.

Side note: How is it possible that 2013 was five years ago? I swear, it had been only last week.

4. Harvested by hand

Another way bamboo is incredibly eco-friendly is how its harvested. For thousands of years, bamboo forests are harvested by hand, meaning no heavily polluting feller kicking out CO2. It also creates a safer environment for the animals and plants near the bamboo because the farmers can spot them as they are going along and take measures to not harm them.

Harvesting bamboo regularly is extremely important for the local eco-system. lowering the super tall bamboo allows the daylight to nourish smaller plants that might be otherwise hidden. Don’t forget that sunlight gives plants their food through photosynthesis.

The farmers even mark the bamboo plants with ribbons or spray paints, as seen within the photo below, to make sure that they harvest them at the optimum time for that plant. They don’t just plant and harvest entire sections at a time because that might heavily disrupt the local ecosystem, affecting plant diversity and disturbing animal habitats.

5. the good bamboo regeneration

As mentioned above, bamboo is grass. So, very similar to your lawn reception, it regenerates when the stalk is cut. It also means when bamboo is harvested, the plant doesn’t get to be uprooted.

Other plants that do get to be uprooted (i.e., trees) will leave a huge hole within the earth that surrounding soil will fall under. this is often not just unsightly; it’s also pretty dangerous for the encompassing area.

This will leave the land much less stable and permit topsoil to be easily washed away during heavy rain or blown away by strong winds. This erosion is dangerous because it can contribute to decreased soil fertility, lower water quality levels, and even mudslides.

6. Less shipping

Now, you’re probably wondering how eco-friendly bamboo are often if it’s to be shipped from China. That’s a good point, but there’s a small problem thereupon thinking. Almost everything sold within the US is formed in China or another Asian country .

I wouldn’t be surprised if the finger painting that my nephew gave me for my birthday features a “Made in China” sticker on the rear .

Even all-American hardwoods proudly grown within the US are sent to China for milling and manufacturing because it’s cheaper. meaning double the shipping, which is that the least eco-thing I’ve ever heard of. Thankfully, sending items via a container freight ship is that the most eco-friendly shipping method, but that also doesn’t mean you ought to roll in the hay quite you would like to.

What is bamboo used for?

Industrious people in China and worldwide have used bamboo for millennia to form items that might improve their lives. this is often because bamboo is stronger than wood, brick, or concrete, features a higher lastingness than steel, and is flexible enough for delicate work.

These items include:

• Paper
• Books
• Food, including certain dumplings and pickled bamboo
• Alcohol, including vodka and wine
• Bamboo flooring
• Clothing, including accessories like hats and shoes
• Ornaments
• Arrows
• Fuel, including charcoal and biofuel
• Musical Instruments
• Cooking utensils, most notably chopsticks
• Water pipes
• Fishing Poles
• Jewelry
• Tools, like drills and mallets
• Furniture
• Sunglasses
• Boats
• Flagpoles
• Ropes
• Skateboards
• Scaffolding and Building Materials
• Accommodation, including tree houses, temporary huts, and enormous mansions
• Bike frames
• Floors

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Bamboo is often wont to make anything that you simply could make from hardwoods. the sole difference is that bamboo goods would cost less and be more durable.

Moso Bamboo

Moso bamboo, also referred to as hairy bamboo or tortoise-shell bamboo (or Phyllostachys edulis for the science geeks), is native to China and Taiwan. it’s also been naturalized elsewhere by travelers coming back from the East, who recognized the plant’s huge advantages and wanted to bring them back to their countries. you’ll even find it growing within the USA as of 2016!

When left to grow, these yellow and green canes can reach incredible heights, with an outsized canopy of feathery leaves that starts around 30 ft overhead.

How is it used?

The most common uses for Moso bamboo include:

• Textiles – its average breaking tenacity is 3 times that of rayon, cotton, polyester, or wool.
• Food – its shoots are edible and attractive.
• Flooring is that the incredibly dense and powerful fibers found in Moso Bamboo that make it strong enough to be manufactured into durable flooring planks.