A Stroll Through the Garden: World Bamboo Day

ASHLAND — Happy belated Bamboo Day! Last year was the first year I brought attention to Sept. 18.

During the 8th World Bambo Congress, the participants officially declared Sept. 18 as World Bamboo Day.

Sept. 18 is a renowned Nobel Laureate and India’s former president, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam’s birthday. Kalam advocated that bamboo could be used to combat poverty and environmental degradation.

Could you imagine that bamboo could be one of the keys to tackling climate change?

Anecdotally, I interviewed my friend who operates the Mohican Preservation Arboretum in the heat of the summer.

I found that as we talked near the bamboo grove it was cooler. Scientific studies have revealed that bamboo can act as a natural air conditioner as it cools the surrounding temperatures by up to 8 degrees. Wow! 

So, plant bamboo everywhere, right? No more Global warming!

Let’s get serious. The aggressive nature of most bamboo will create all kinds of problems. One example I recall was a client who installed a few bamboo culms in his backyard. He had grown a strong grove. 

This grove pushed almost every paver out of the ground in his newly installed patio. My first recommendation is to cage this aggressive tiger of a plant, or it will tear up your landscape.

I have a clumping bamboo in my yard with the scientific name Fragesia rufa. Clumping bamboo is far more manageable for a person’s backyard. Studies have shown that these clumping bamboos provide more oxygen to the brain and can help relieve tension headaches. 

For a high-tension job, a backyard sanctuary with a small water feature bird feeder surrounded by flowers and this clumping bamboo would be ideal to decompress. I have designed such backyards.

Last year I talked about a fellow down in Logan County Ohio. His name was Wes Super who sells bamboo-based mulch, to which he adds wood sticks and twigs. Green mulch means it can provide more nitrogen to plants over a longer time.

Bamboo is largely silica-based which helps improve the soil. The mulch also keeps the soil in place, not allowing water penetration.

Because bamboo is also a member of the grass family you don’t have to take down trees to benefit from bamboo. Can you imagine using this fast-growing plant for anything and not being concerned that you won’t have it next year to repeat the process? 

This would mean that this bamboo mulch is great for the environment. Since last year I have been intrigued by using bamboo mulch.

I have also discovered several studies that reveal that bamboo mulch has certain allelopathic qualities. Certain bamboo mulches prevent weed seeds from flying into a bed and producing weeds in your garden. 

Super said that he hasn’t experienced the allelopathic qualities that some bamboo studies have revealed yet, in the mulch plantings he has done.

A conversation on the internet got my attention two weeks ago about the allelopathy qualities in bamboo.

The narrative first described how some vegetable crops were grown between groves and clumps of bamboo.

According to the report, the vegetables struggled to produce anything. 

These vegetables were grown outside these clumps and the seeds did not catch.

There are no new plants in the gardens from seeds. Why? 

Leaves from the bamboo had fallen over the prepared beds. Plant seeds were open to the sunshine. 

An internet expert asked, “Are there any known enzymes that could be considered a phytotoxin?” 

This gardener then tested the leaves and the soil. Results came back that, 6 different phytotoxins appeared. Among the phytotoxins were O-hydroxyphenylacetic, P-hydroxybenzoic, P-courmaric, vanillic, ferulic, and syringic were found in the aqueous leachate and extracts of leaves and alcoholic soil extracts where bamboos were grown. 

The phytotoxicities of extracts were correlated with the phytotoxins present in both leaves and soils. I have read five studies that said there might be allelopathic qualities to bamboo use. What I’m saying is that more studies need to be done.

In Massachusetts at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute studies are going on that use this vigorous growing plant called bamboo as an alternative to fossil fuels. 

Researchers put bamboo through a ball milling process, which grinds up the bamboo. Then they inject an enzyme treatment as a part of the process. These researchers then convert the bamboo into simple sugars, which can be fermented to create ethanol. Ball milling increases sugar yields substantially over standard milling. 

In addition, ball milling does not generate new chemical waste, unlike other biofuels. Imagine waste-free fuel and an abundant resource that comes back each year. Truly our energy problems and pollution problems may be coming to an end with this new research. Again, Happy Bamboo Day!

I hope you have a great stroll through your garden this week. If you see any challenges let me know by dropping me an email at ericlarson546@yahoo.com. 

Soon I shall be adding my blogs to my website at www.ohiohealthyfoodcooperative.org. Thank you for participating in our column.