There is nothing quite like seeing a native plant growing in its rightful place. Over in Japan, bamboo is a weed that can be found growing as ground cover in woodlands like this:

And yet it is cultivated in gardens to grow to a glorious size – a proper bamboo forest:

Until I saw bamboo growing in Japan, I never found bamboo especially attractive. Those bamboo canes sold in garden centres really do the plant a disservice. Apparently over 2000 products are made from bamboo in Japan alone. It was used all over the place especially for fencing, gates and screening. I loved the example below with cord used to tie the bamboo together:

With children, there were lots of uses. The bamboo made the biggest bread twists (dampers) I have ever seen….

Bamboo guttering is increasingly popular in the UK as a natural alternative to plastic guttering. It’s a versatile resource and I’ve previously blogged about its use and maintenance. look how the example below has been constructed, using bamboo sticks as support  – now l like that for an idea!

At the International Skogsmulle Symposium, one afternoon was spent undertaking practical workshops and one was on making stuff from green bamboo! Yay. Check out the pull saws we used. These are now easy to source in the UK.

Keisuke led the workshop and showed us some of the things we could make such as a simple pair of stilts. This reminded me of my childhood and making stilts from empty golden syrup cans.

Bamboo brooms… handy for sweeping up leaves…

Or how about a mug for a nice hot drink..

This is not a pea shooter but a way of channelling air to keep a fire going…

It’s possible to make small world toys such as this snail…

Or how about a ninja octopus?…

Try weaving a placemat…

Or creating a trio of vases…

As well as the traditional bamboo chimes, simple xylophones can be created from large off cuts…

The bamboo was tough to cut but because the inner is hollow, less effort is needed than with a lot of wood.

In the photo above and below, this is a planter being made.

All-in-all it was lovely to see the wild and tamed bamboo and get a chance to work with it. There is Scottish Bamboo, based just up the road from where I live so schools can buy and grow this amazing plant, should they wish to do so. There’s lots of information about different varieties and advice about what to grow where.Be aware it can be a thug of a plant, so may need curtailed in some way. For an ever-increasing range of educational bamboo products, have a look at the Cosy website. Meanwhile I’m much aware of what a beautiful, versatile plant this is.

This post was originally published in January 2013.