For sheer speed of growth, bamboo, that terrestrial family of jointed and woody grasses, takes the silver, seconded in that race only by giant sea kelp.
For that, and for fact that it grows happily in the narrow margins of houses, many landscapers favor bamboo as an elegant green privacy screen or living fence. Its wood and its gently rustling and knocking music screen out sound as well as sight.
Gerald Bol, the founder of Bamboo Sourcery, claimed that, with sharp ears, one could even hear the restless bamboo growing at their spear-like top point. In peak heat, they can grow two feet a day. Jennifer York, his daughter, and current co-steward of Bamboo Sourcery, claimed she can hear it grow—it’s like a crackling sound.
Joe Ruffatto, husband of Jennifer York, and the other co-owner, wryly admitted that he can’t hear it. But then again, he “had listened to a lot of amplified rock and roll.” For me, I couldn’t find an easy scientific reference to the phenomenon, but it is a poetic truth if not a literal one. Indeed, it evokes several famous Buddhist koans.
Our interview was conducted as a walk and talk, as my two hosts toured me up and down their 7.5 acre hillside home and nursery. Stopping frequently, we passed bamboo demonstration gardens and potting sheds, shrines, storehouses, greenhouses, rentals, homes and offices, a barn, an orchard, a reservoir, a newt pond and solar arrays, all along rambling paths lined with hundreds of potted bamboo ready for sale.
Reading off displays as we passed, there were “silver-stripe” bamboo, “golden vivax,” “green temple” bamboo, variegated “walking stick” bamboo, “old hamii” giant timber bamboo and “Jiuzhaigon”—names that evoke the range through which bamboo species vary.
Cincinnatus Hibbard: How many plants do you have in your stock?
Joe Ruffatto: Maybe 30,000.
Divided into how many species?
About 250 species. Not all are for sale. We have 100 for common sale and the rest as part of our bamboo collection. All of them are temperate species, meaning that they grow well in Northern California.
Wow, 250 species. And you propagate them all here?
Jennifer York: Yes. My father was given some bamboo seed which he successfully propagated. He then traded some of those babies for other species of bamboo, and that is how this collection started… He later got very involved in the Bamboo Society and traveled all over the world collecting temperate species and putting them through the two-year plant quarantine process.
That travel sounds romantic. Tell me about bamboo’s charm and magic.
Well, how do you feel walking through these bamboo groves? It’s evocative. There is a vibe to it. I love to have people come in to visit from urban environments. They sigh and say, I want my garden to feel like this. They pretty much fall in love…
I understand you are looking to sell your business … but not your land.
Bamboo Sourcery is a great jewel, and we don’t want it to end.
Joe Ruffatto: We are selling the name brand, the client base, all our stock and the knowhow. We have spent a lot of time putting our business and propagation procedures into binders full of information. …This business has afforded us a wonderful quality of life and lifestyle.
Having walked the line and circumference of your bamboo kingdom, I could not but agree.
Learn more: Go to linktr.ee/bamboosourceryLINKS.
