You’re probably familiar with San Diego Botanic Garden (SDBG) and its 37 acres of view-filled trails and themed gardens. But maybe you didn’t know that it also has one of the largest collections of bamboo in North America, and though bamboo may be as tall as a tree, it’s actually a grass.
My photographer husband and I were lucky enough to do a walking tour with SDBG’s Chief Operations and Experience Officer Tomoko Kuta, the organizer of the exhibition we’d come to see: Bamboo: Beautiful Massive Grasses.
Maurice Hewitt
Tomoko Kuta, inside the Tunnel of Grass, created by Tim Jara and the Bamboo team.
She had a great suggestion: Start out with a drink in your hand from Cork Oak Café’s Coffee Bar, where Sammy whips up hot or iced drinks to order, sourced from the best South American beans. You’ll be happy to have one with you as you walk along the newly accessible trails, now friendly to strollers and wheelchairs, and when you’re ready to find a bamboo bench to sit down on and enjoy the soothing sounds of bamboo swaying in the wind.
Fascinating facts: There are over 1,000 species of bamboo worldwide and SDBG has over 100 of them, some about 40 feet tall. It’s been called the world’s fastest growing plant, since once it gets started, each stem can grow more than three feet a day.
Maurice Hewitt
Pacific View Tower, created by Bill Rawlings and the Garden Gnomes at SDBG.
Though bamboo is lightweight and looks slim, some species are stronger than steel. Bamboo is flexible too, and a great producer of oxygen, good at improving air quality. Stir-fried bamboo shoots are tasty and nutritious, and often used in Asian cooking, but edible bamboo is farmed separately, since cutting the shoots kills the plant.
Now that giant pandas are back at San Diego Zoo, SDBG is sending the new ones samples of different bamboo leaves and stalks to find out what they prefer to eat. The former pandas liked Beechey Bamboo–a large-size Chinese species–but these may have different tastes.
Whatever your tastes, you’re sure to enjoy a walk in the Botanic Garden, and notice the different ways artistic gardeners have chosen to show off the versatile qualities of their massive grasses.
The Bamboo: Beautiful Massive Grasses exhibit runs Sept 14- Oct. 21 at San Diego Botanic Garden, 300 Quail Gardens Drive, Encinitas. (Open six days a week, 9 a.m. -5 p.m.; closed Tuesdays. Last ticket entry 4 p.m.).
Visit www.sdbg.org or call 760-436-3036 for more information.