Bamboow
The Journal
Sizing a Bamboo Screen: How Tall, How Fast, and Which Species
For a four-metre screen, three of the four common species get there in a single season. The one that gets there fastest is not the one most people plant.
Carbon Per Plant Is the Number That Gets Misquoted
A hectare's uptake is fixed. Divide it among more plants and each plant looks worse — which is why a per-plant figure tells you about planting density, not about bamboo.
Pole Fence or Panel Fence: What Each One Actually Costs You in Material
A panel fence is counted in panels and posts. A pole fence is counted in hundreds of culms. They are the same fence to look at and completely different orders.
Bamboo Against Oak and Maple, on the Same Scale
Red oak is the reference every flooring conversation quietly uses. Two of the three bamboos beat it and one does not, which is why 'harder than oak' is true and useless.
Full Height in Weeks, Fit to Cut in Years
A bamboo culm finishes growing in a single season and then spends several more becoming usable. Those are two different clocks, and only one of them is fast.
The Flooring Waste Allowance, and What It Really Buys You
Between a 10% allowance and a 15% one there is often no difference at all in what you order, because boxes round up. Here is where the thresholds actually fall.
What a Bamboo Plantation Returns, and When It Pays Back
The model says this plot pays back in a given year. It also assumes a full harvest from year one, which no plantation has ever delivered.
What a Bamboo Grove Sequesters, and the Condition Nobody Mentions
A hectare of managed bamboo takes up about twelve tonnes of CO2 a year — two and a half cars' worth. Whether it stays taken up depends entirely on what happens to the culm.
Planning a Bamboo Fence: Panels, Posts, and the Post You Forgot
Posts are panels plus one, not panels. Get that wrong on a sixty-foot run and you are one post short on the day you build it.
What a Bamboo Floor Actually Costs, in Boxes
Flooring is sold by the box and boxes round up, so the waste allowance you choose is not the waste you get. A small room can finish with a fifth of a floor spare.
Is Bamboo Flooring Hard Enough? What Janka Actually Says
Carbonized bamboo is the dark, expensive-looking one and the softest of the three. Strand-woven is harder than any common hardwood. They are all sold as 'bamboo flooring'.
How Fast Bamboo Actually Grows, Species by Species
Moso shoots three times faster per day than Guadua and finishes five metres shorter. The daily rate everyone quotes is not the number that decides how tall a culm gets.