Bamboo diet.

7:00 a.m., Friday (Bamboo-day) I crawled out of bed, with little inhibition, I was posed with the question, '... wanna go to breakfast?'  'Of course,' I reply.

8:00 a.m.  Off to our favorite...  Granite Grill in Rocklin, their motto, 'A little Country and a little Rock and Roll.'  Sounds like a real breakfast to me.  This place is a great down-home breakfast joint.  This is a place Guy Fieri would visit.

I pick Denver Cakes with eggs over-medium, a huge biscuit and iced-tea (sorry, not a coffee drinker, but need the caffeine).  Denver Cakes are fried hash browns with cheese, ham topped with sour cream and green onions.  Yummy!

8:35 a.m. 3,000 calories later.  Why do I carb and calorie load (guilt, guilt, and more guilt)?  It's a bamboo diet day!  No worries, right?

10:30 a.m. - Truck rolls up loaded with bamboo plants.  It's a windy, showery day.  Thought - oh no, this is going to be a rough day, lots of physical work.  But, instantly, my calorie guilt begins to melt.

Hauling 300 bamboo five gallon plants (20 pounds each), from the front driveway to the back yard... bamboo diet time!  Between by wife and I, that's 3 tons of plants.  Holy ?%$#!

3:30 p.m.  I'm beat, all plants put away in the backyard.  After that Breakfast of Champions, I figured I gained at least five pounds, but after the blood, sweat and tears, I lost two pounds (verified it on our ultra-precise Target scale).  Not alot, but it was enough to erase the guilt from my calorie-loaded breakfast indulgence.

7:30 a.m tomorrow (rubbing my tired eyes) - Where did all this bamboo come from and how do I get rid of it?  Yikes!  That's another story...

Forget Atkins, forget South Beach, I am a believer in the Bamboo Diet.

Cheers!

Sean
Mad Man Bamboo
(916) 300-6335
www.madmanbamboo.com
Mad Man Bamboo on Facebook
Twitter: @madmanbamboo

Wind - 1, Bamboo - 0. Tales of a 'severe' California storm...

Crazy California weather, as crazy as it gets in Rocklin, CA.  High wind gusts, plenty of blown-down fences, gobs of rain, even some teeny-tiny hail, garbage bins in the middle of the street (yes, thank the fates for it being garbage day today!) and Cats and Dogs living in perfect harmony (OK, that an exaggeration).  It's pandemonium, its chaos, it's a Northern California storm.


This is a first for me, a bamboo culm toppled over in defeat from high California winds.  Yeah, I've heard many times that we Californians don't know what a real storm is.


This was a Phylostachys nigra 'Black Bamboo' culm.  Sacramento storms are not snowy but fierce.  Today was a doozy.  Hopefully, our weather sages are right on - temps in the high 60's, low 70's in a few days.  

Will Spring finally spring (a bit of sun after the storm)?


Yours in optimism,


Sean

Mad Man Bamboo

(916) 300-6335

www.madmanbamboo.com
Mad Man Bamboo on Facebook
Twitter: @madmanbamboo

Rain, rain, rain... is helping the bamboo shoot, shoot, shoot!

It's a long stretch of rain, which can be grey and dull, but holds great promise for the shooting season for running bamboo here in Sacramento.  Last week, I discovered, with great joy, that my Phylostachys edulis 'Moso' was shooting.  The deluge of rain has the ability to renew the plant's top foliage from the cold dry winter winds and help the bamboo plants push fresh bamboo shoots from the cold ground.  Once this cold front pushes through our area and we approach warmer April days and nights, I think it holds great promise for some beautiful, unique and vigorous bamboo shoots reaching for the sky here in the Sacramento region.

I couldn't help myself today, even in the rain to take some photos of some of the new bamboo shoots:

This is Phylostachys bissetti, known to be one of the first running bamboos to shoot.

This is the beautiful Semiarundaria yashadake kimmei, it gets red from sun exposure.  One of my favorite running bamboos.

Here's to some warm sunny days around the corner!

Sean

Mad Man Bamboo

(916) 300-6335

www.madmanbamboo.com

Mad Man Bamboo on Facebook

Twitter: @madmanbamboo

Ugh.. Garden "impulse buy" today... but I like it!

Got up early today, one of our first stops for the early morning was a nearby 'big box' hardware/garden/home improvement store.  Got - some fertilizer for the lawn, some flowers for a hanging basket, some twine, a tree saw and a 'roaming gnome.'

Yes, you heard right - a 'roaming gnome' of Travelocity fame sold in the same aisle with the solar light Buddha, the Cat with angel wings and the faux copper crane. Totally useless, totally what I wouldn't buy if I had a good night's sleep, I was a marketer's dream - I succumbed to an 'impulse buy', I hate to admit it.

If you love CBS's longstanding series, The Amazing Race, you get the significance.

Needless to say, my girls were thrilled when we brought the 'roaming gnome' home and now he (or it) has a place in the garden (this photo taken among the bamboo).  He looks happy, but 'still-faced' and stoic.

Damn those 'impulse buys', they got me this time!

Cheers!

Sean
Mad Man Bamboo
www.madmanbamboo.com
Mad Man Bamboo on Facebook
Twitter: @madmanbamboo

First bamboo shoots of the season!

After some good rain and some higher daytime temperatures in the Sacramento area, the running bamboo is finally starting to shoot.  Running bamboo typically begins to shoot in the late Winter through the Spring.

Of course knowing this, this is when I rustle through my bamboo selection in the search for new shoots, like a kid in a candy store.  Running bamboo when it shoots offers unique textures and colors; and on top of that, extraordinary vertical growth as the culms shoot to the sky.  Warms my Bamboo Geek heart to see bamboo shooting.  It's one of the things I look forward to seeing and its one of my signs that Spring is really not that far away.

Above is a photo of what I discovered today, 6-7 new culms on my Phylostachys edulis 'Moso', a giant timber variety, one of the largest bamboos in the world.  It can reach a maximum height of 75 feet with 7 inch diameter culms.  They build with Moso canes in China, it's that big.

Enjoy the weather and look out for those emerging bamboo shoots!

Cheers!

Sean
Mad Man Bamboo
(916) 300-6335
www.madmanbamboo.com
Mad Man Bamboo on Facebook
Twitter: @madmanbamboo

Bamboo in Washington D.C.

Last week, I was in Washington D.C. for work.  The day I left to travel to Sacramento, I had a few hours before my flight to sight-see.  I totally lucked out on this trip, the lowest temperature I encountered was 16 degrees and it was snow-free, with plenty of sunshine.  Despite the great weather, Washington D.C. was the last place I would have thought of to have much bamboo around.

Despite my low expectations for bamboo sight-seeing, here are some surprises along the way that I found:

I ran into this Exxon gas station where I found bamboo incorporated into the landscape.

Here is my visit to the United States Botanic Garden (USBG) located along the National Mall near the Capitol Building.  What came across my mind when I walked through the doors - 'I have arrived.'   The USBG was part of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison's shared dream of having a national botanic garden.  The USBG has been open to the public since 1850.  It maintains over 60,000 plants for exhibition, study, conservation and exchange with other institutions.  Some part of the current collection are from the original 1842 founding collection.

This is Bambusa textilis 'Weaver's Bamboo' inside the USBG. Could never grow outside in Washington D.C., but in the conservatory, no problem.

Is this Black Bamboo? Nope. Its, sugar cane. Poaceae Saccharum, a distant relative of bamboo.

Bambusa vulgaris 'Vittata', a clumping bamboo that can take temperatures down to 30 degrees.  Would never grow outside in Washington D.C. (and wouldn't even do well in more moderate Sacramento), but in the USBG, no problem.

A Cacao Tree.

I thought this was a clever use of bamboo poles for decoration inside the USBG.

That night, I took a LONG.......... flight home to Sacramento.  As I dragged by jet-lagged body through the terminal at Sacramento International Airport and into the newly constructed Terminal A parking garage, I caught a glimpse of something that looked like bamboo.  Walking over, it was indeed bamboo! I grabbed my camera and took this shot.  Bambusa oldhamii 'Giant Clumping Timber Bamboo'.  Sheltered from the relatively mild Sacramento winter wind, it was a great looking specimen and a fitting end to my trip to Washington D.C.  As Dorothy said... 'There's no place like home."  Glad to be back!

Sean
Mad Man Bamboo
(916) 300-6335
www.madmanbamboo.com
Mad Man Bamboo on Facebook
Twitter: @madmanbamboo