Bamboo fanatics and other oddities

Henon Bamboo

On Sunday afternoon we stopped by the Clinton Bamboo Nursery.  It's a secluded place tucked away behind a house on a busy street in White Center.  We rarely go through this neighborhood, so it's a long story how we eventually found it.

Like most urban bamboo custodians, we have a slight guilt trip about what we once planted so casually in our yard.  People either love or hate the stuff, with the scales probably tipping over to hate.  According to Google, "bamboo phobia" is a actual psychological condition.  So it was nice to chat with one of the gentlemen owners, an unashamed bamboo lover not the least intimidated by 40 foot high varieties like the Henon-- a "giant timber" bamboo, which says it all. This is the same variety we have planted by the garage, and for six weeks in the spring it tries its darnedest to blast through the old floorboards and siding. And cross the alley to scare our neighbors.

Along with becoming invasive without a strong underground barrier, bamboo is messy and scatters dry leaves and husks around the neighborhood all summer.  Everyone knows it came from your yard. The nursery display garden was raked neat as a pin, and I could appreciate how much work that takes. Clinton also sells unusual grasses, pond stuff and oddities like carnivorous plants.  I was suckered in by the Sarracenia purpurea, or purple pitcher plant.

It is native to bogs along the East coast where it gets most of its nutrients through prey capture in the summer.  The water filled pitchers collect ants, spiders and moths where they drown and then are digested.  We have plenty of spiders for it to eat. He told me to plant it in peat moss and never fertilize it.  Supposedly it is winter hardy in Seattle.  Maybe it fasts in cold weather.