Bamboo!

I am interrupting my planned presentation of the detailed farm program with some news today. Actually this would definitely be part of it but I wouldn't normally put it first. Today I met and spent the day at the land belonging to the president of the American Bamboo Society, Darren DeBoer, in El Sobrante (CA). He has a natural building company (and the visit was a lab day with my natural building class) but I had the chance to ask him about something that was bothering me.

First, some background: The bamboos, which consist of many genera, are divided into clumping and running species. The meaning of this should be clear enough, especially if you've tried to eradicate a rapidly expanding bamboo grove. My extraordinary and lovely new book Edible Forest Gardens suggests that the only bamboos that can be grown in the temperate climates of the middle east coast are the running varieties, notably many of the genus Phyllostachys. I asked him about this today, and he said to look at the species of genera Fargesia and Borinda. Bingo! A glance on the species list of the American Bamboo Society shows the variety of cold-hardy clumping bamboo species, though it does suggest that they are intolerant of very high summer temperatures. We can freely experiment with these, though, for there is little danger of expansion even without a rhizome barrier. I'll check this out and report back.