I want to tell you about the day I stood in my backyard, coffee in hand, staring at my beloved golden bamboo grove and genuinely wondering if I had killed it. The leaves were curling, scorched brown at the tips like someone had run a lighter along each one, and I had absolutely no one … Read more
I stood in my backyard last spring, squinting at my golden bamboo like a detective who had absolutely no business being a detective. There was white stuff on it. Fluffy, cottony, suspicious white stuff. I did what any reasonable person does in this situation — I immediately convinced myself my bamboo had contracted some obscure, … Read more
I want to tell you about the summer I accidentally let my bamboo grove turn into what I can only describe as a tiny, sticky, aphid-themed horror movie — and somehow came out the other end with a garden that looked like it belonged in a nature documentary. But first, let me back up. If … Read more
I stood in my backyard staring at a bamboo grove that had taken me five years to grow, and I knew something was terribly wrong. The culms had gone from vibrant green to a sickly yellow almost overnight, and when I finally dug down to investigate, the smell hit me first — that unmistakable, earthy … Read more