Bamboo planting...DONE!

Ben digging,
originally uploaded by Joe Litton.

Whew!
I'm glad we're only doing this once! Last Sunday was a nasty bit of
work digging and planting the first half of our 60-foot trench of
bamboo. Fortunately for us,
Ben's shift at Tia's yesterday didn't start until 6pm, so he was able to help us out for a few hours while we completed the other 30 feet of bamboo trench. I've posted several pics with commentary up on my Flickr page.
It struck me while working that I must be getting used to Florida
weather. It was about 90F (32C) and aside from sweating like a
waterfall (which I do any time I exercise ...or eat spicy food :-)
...it actually felt about that same as what 80F (27C) used to feel like
when we lived in Washington state.

Well, we now have a 60 foot trench planted with bamboo. It's a
"runner", which means it spreads by sending out underground shoots that
then pop up elsewhere and fill in the space. That is why we lined the
trench with galvanized metal roof flashing. When the runners hit the
metal, they'll take the path of least resistance and go up. With proper
care and feeding, this should give us a very attractive privacy screen
in a couple of years. It's already quite a pleasure to look out from
the lanai and pool cage and see the greenery.

Comments

[Sarah]

You're going to have a lot of bamboo - that stuff grows like crazy here!