Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Bamboo in The Garden

  • The Bamboo Store is launching Garden Mania: A bamboo garden accessories festival to celebrate the onset of spring. A range of garden accessories in bamboo will be available from The Bamboo Store, N-11, Rear Lane, N Block Market, Greater Kailash Part I, New Delhi-110048 throughout the month of March.

    Bamboo is ideal for gardens, both as a planting material and for garden furniture and accessories. Firstly it is a natural bio-degradable material and therefore scores high on the eco-friendly point of view. Secondly, bamboo has a natural charm that adds greatly to the garden’s beauty - think of sweeping bamboo stands, the wind whispering through them. Think of a melodious bamboo wind-chime adding a lovely musical note … I could go on !!

    Reams have been written about the invasive nature of the bamboo plant, how it takes over the entire garden, its vast network of roots and shoots spreading wide. However, all that fear is exaggerated. You can take several measures to restrict bamboo in the garden to the spaces you want it to be present –
    1. plant the bamboo is sturdy pots and bury them in the garden,
    2. line the sides of the trench where the bamboo is to be planted with tin/aluminium sheets or a layer of bricks

In terms of garden accessories and furniture, the sky is the limit as far as using bamboo is concerned. Here are just some of the things that can be done in bamboo which we are stocking at the Bamboo Store:
· planters
· bird-houses
· bird-feeders
· chairs
· tables
· swings
· candlestands
· flares (mashaals)
· garden umbrellas
· fences
· gazebos
· garden lamps
· deer-scares
· sculptures
· wind-chimes

You don’t have to have a huge garden to have bamboo in it. Even a small terrace or balcony will do – get some lovely bamboo plants in pots and use it as a screen. Hang up some bird feeders, bird-houses, a wind-chime, a couple of bamboo planters with seasonal or succulents and voila! Your bamboo retreat is ready. If space permits, throw in a bamboo and fabric garden umbrella, a couple of bamboo loungers and you can relax in your bamboo paradise !

Friday, February 1, 2008

IS BAMBOO HOT/HAUTE TODAY?

Bamboo is fast emerging as a “haute” design medium in the Western world these days with several top-notch design awards coming its way. Check out “HAUTE GREEN 2007” at http://www.inhabitat.com/category/nydesignweek2007/

What makes bamboo such an attractive option for home décor now? Well, there are several reasons as to why bamboo is so popular nowadays. Perhaps, the greatest reason is that bamboo makes for great ecological sense in today’s environmentally fragile world. Deforestation and excessive industrialization has taken their toll and people across the globe are battling with the ill effects of global warming and climate change. Bamboo is an easily renewable resource, capable of regenerating in a shorter time than trees. Typically, bamboos mature in 3-5 years as compared to most tree species which take anything between 12-20 years to grow fully. This makes bamboo a more sustainable resource to harvest and use regularly as replacement for wood which is becoming increasingly scarce. Given the fact that bamboo has similar strength and properties as wood, it is a viable alternative to wood for use in home, garden and office décor. Bamboo is also called wonder lumber as it does not need too many preparations to use – it can be used as is. This minimal need for preparation makes it a good choice to metals and plastics, which require a lot of resources and input to be prepared, even in the raw form.
Another reason for bamboo’s popularity is that it brings in a whiff of Nature into living spaces like no other material. The warm natural tone of bamboo, its singular elegance is a total contrast to the cold hi-tech glamour of glass and chrome, or the pop art colours of plastic. It is hard to resist the charm of a well-proportioned bamboo sofa, looking as though it has brought the fresh green outdoors inside your room.