When I was a child…

I remember my father cursing the seemingly unstoppable crop of bamboo that grew outside out house. Now, I did not grow up in the middle of the Amazon jungle – I am referring to our house just outside of Manly in NSW, Australia. We had bamboo growing everywhere – the previous owners thought it ‘exotic’ to plant it and encourage it.

Make no mistake; bamboo is a noxious weed and one which causes terrible damage to things like sewer pipes.

But if only we had known back then that you could harvest it and turn it into things like bamboo shades…I reckon Dad would have made a fortune. But the damn stuff just grew and caused damage.

Then again, we also saw the passionfruit vine as a pest – yes it gave us lots of fruit for which Mum ran out of ideas for use of eventually; and the choko vine – Dad ate them with salt and pepper with his dinner but once again – too many to do anything with.

One word of advice; if you are going to plant something which grows like mad then make sure you have plenty of use for it.

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