Bamboo Garden Border

Bamboo border and pathways laid out.

Materials

Bamboo

Digging Tools

Gloves

Loppers or Saw

Twine

methods

We wanted to plant in an area and not have children run over the seedlings right next to the path, so decided to create a border with bamboo already growing in the garden.

The first step was removing the reclaimed concrete border that always looked messy, didn’t keep kids from running over the planting area, and always needed to be pulled out as they would actually sink into the soil after a time.

We cut off green bamboo (more pliable than when it’s dry and brown) at the base, trying not to leave too much length above the ground so little bare feet wouldn’t hurt themselves running over and through the bamboo patch. Tear the leaves off by pulling backwards.

We dug a trench for the bamboo to be placed inside. We borrowed a very handy iron stake and hammered it in to make the holes for the bamboo even deeper!

Bending bamboo and sticking it into the holes. Harder to get it to stay than it looks! Way easier when kids help. Here, they’re placing bricks at the points where the bamboo enters the ground so the stakes will stay in place until we can bury them. In the end, the bamboo that was bent the furthest stayed in the ground far easier than pieces that weren’t too bent as seen in the photo above.

We worked with the kids to lay out lengths of twine inside the garden plot to demarkate plots and planting areas. With kids, it’s really important to have narrow garden beds so they can reach all the way in with their little bodies to plant, water, and harvest!

Pieces of bamboo are placed in an overlapping manner and then lashed with twine to strengthen.

Watering the new area!

Planting seeds in preparation for transplant.

Success! A new baby squash.

An issue: Unexpectedly, but fun to study, we had a pest management problem to research… It turned out that roly polies would eat the bamboo away at the soil surface at night! So this is definitely an ongoing project to replace bamboo sections if you have roly polies or perhaps even earwigs!

While we were at it we created a tunnel for the kids, too! The idea was to have vines growing up it eventually.

Lesson plan by Heather Taylor, teachoutside@gmail.com. You are welcome to share all materials with credit to her.