Ten Things…

1. Bamboo is a rapidly renewable building material. Unlike a tree—which dies when its trunk is cut—bamboo canes can be harvested multiple times with no damage to the root system. Once bamboo cane is cut, new stalks sprout up, which reach full growth in six months and are harvestable in three to five years.

2. Bamboo is classified as a giant grass until it’s harvested. Then it’s a wood product.

1. Bamboo is a rapidly renewable building material. Unlike a tree—which dies when its trunk is cut—bamboo canes can be harvested multiple times with no damage to the root system. Once bamboo cane is cut, new stalks sprout up, which reach full growth in six months and are harvestable in three to five years.

2. Bamboo is classified as a giant grass until it's harvested. Then it's a wood product.

3. One appeal of bamboo as a building material (for fences, cabinets, floors and furniture) is its strength. Whereas wood fibers are short, allowing a slat of wood to be easily broken in two, bamboo's fibers are long and fibrous, like a stalk of celery.

4. Because of their strength, bamboo products tend to be more lightweight than wood products. An outdoor deck made of bamboo, for example, can hold a comparable amount of weight as a wood one, but the structure will be lighter.

5. Bamboo falls in the medium price range for exotic woods when used for cabinets, shelves and counters, but is generally less expensive than traditional hardwood floors.

6. Contrary to the popular belief that bamboo is a tropical plant, it grows everywhere except Antarctica. It is cold tolerant to 20 degrees below zero and grows prolifically in the wet winters of the Pacific Northwest.

7. How earth-friendly is bamboo? It absorbs four times more carbon dioxide and produces 30-40 percent more oxygen than comparable trees. Even when canes are harvested, the plant still produces oxygen and absorbs carbon dioxide.

8. Aesthetically, bamboo is prized for its natural warmth and symmetry. There are three different color finishes for bamboo: natural (which is yellowish), carbonized and caramelized—the latter two are darker because the bamboo is heated so the sugars burn.

9. Bamboo requires no more care than any other wood product. It should always have a finish to preserve its luster and keep scratches to a minimum.

10. In Asian cultures, bamboo is revered as a metaphor for the human spirit: be strong and flexible like bamboo, so you can bend and spring back victorious.