Sunday, November 16, 2008

Bamboo is the fastest growing grass in the world

Bamboo is the largest, fastest growing evergreen grass in the world. There are about 1,000 species of bamboo worldwide. Some bamboo can grow up to .5 - 1 ft per day! Since bamboo is a grass, it keeps its leaves year round; even in the snow.

How do I know this? Growing up, my next door neighbors kept a traditional Japanese backyard complete with a forest of bamboo (my dad has spent the last 23 years trying to stop it from expanding into our yard). During bad ice storms the bamboo would bend with the weight of the ice, forming little caves on our yard, but it would never break.



Bamboo is very flexible and is used to build earthquake resistant housing. For more information on bamboo, visit TreeHugger.com.

1 comment:

Gerry Schramm said...

Some species of bamboo flower and die out simultaneously worldwide, like there's a clock in the species that tells it when to turn on or off.

Once for ounce, bamboo is stronger than steel. And it's tasty. The bamboo, not the steel.