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Bamboo boom rides the green wave

Welcome to the bamboo boom. Forget forlorn images of pandas foraging for breakfast in the remote wilds of China. No one has to look far to find bamboo these days.

As one of nature's fastest growing plants, it's a favourite in the renewable resource ratings, held to be beneficial to the environment. It's so versatile its stalks can be pressed into boards for tough wooden flooring, or crushed to produce fibre for super-comfy clothing, bedding and towels.

It's everywhere:

Check the fabric-content label in a light-as-air Panda Snack hoodie, on Bamboosa's pink baby socks, on Land's End towels or Target's sheet sets. The label may proclaim 100 per cent bamboo fibre, or a blend with hemp, organic cotton or silk.

Note the bamboo motif branching out across the design scene, in leafy images on toothbrush holders and soap dishes in bathroom collections from Target that also include pieces made from bamboo itself, and on bamboo-fabric T-shirts, of course.

The jointed stem is echoed in sterling silver, curved into bracelets and earrings in an elegant line of jewelry by John Hardy. (John Hardy representatives say the company is donating 10 per cent of the line's purchase prices toward bamboo planting and other eco-friendly efforts at the company headquarters in Bali).

In furniture, bamboo or simulated bamboo has been around for centuries, with peaks of fashion in the Regency, Empire and Victorian periods - picture the spindly but sturdy legs of Asian-influenced tables or plant stands.

Now bamboo wood is used by architects and designers for construction, for airy summer houses as well as for sturdy flooring, for furniture and design accents, even for dinnerware.

Gardeners in many regions grow bamboo for screening and greening, outdoors and indoors, and long, elegant bamboo poles serve decorative or functional purposes.

Bamboo is technically a grass, sometimes defined as a woody grass, says Brian Funk of the Brooklyn Botanical Garden, curator of the Japanese Hill and Pond Garden and of the Japanese tree-peony collection.

In size it can range from a ground cover 30 centimetres high to timber bamboos topping out at 23 metres or so. Depending on the climate, the stems could get to a diameter of three metres.

Bamboo's habitat varies widely, but it likes damp subtropical areas. China is still a major producer, but now bamboo is also being made in the U.S.

"Recently, in the past decade or so, it's been cultivated in the southern U.S. - plantations have been springing up all over, especially in Georgia, for example," Funk said.

As for the popular "lucky bamboo" sold in markets and Chinatown stores, that's no bamboo, Funk said. It's a different plant genus, a kind of Draecena, he said.

"Bamboo is really a symbol of lasting friendship and resilience in eastern Asian cultures including Japan, China and Korea. People have seen how, when it's weighed down with snow in winter, it just pops up again," he said.

Bamboo is now a common flooring material, Funk said. According to Bamboo-Flooring.com, bamboo flooring is durable, can be harder than oak and is less expensive than hardwood flooring. For maintenance, frequent gentle cleaning is recommended - and no high heels.

 

 

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