Big on Bamboo

By Nicole DeCosta

The West Linn Tidings, Oct 12, 2006, Updated Oct 30, 2009

VERN UYETAKE / WEST LINN TIDINGS

Paul Lee, owner of Bamboo Home and Garden in West Linn, stands on his proptery off Borland Road.

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With just one turn off Borland Road in West Linn, motorists may find themselves in the midst of a bamboo jungle. On an eight acre parcel butting up to the Tualatin River, the Bamboo Home and Garden business shot up out of nowhere a decade ago and has been growing ever since.

Owner Paul Lee says that by carrying 150 different species of bamboo, homeowners, businesses and the adventurous can find exactly what they’re looking for to enhance their landscaping through these unique grasses.

“One hundred percent of the time if (a client) wants bamboo and they come here, they’ll find it,” said Lee, who operates the business by appointment only. “You can do so many things with bamboo – trim it like a hedge, or build a wall.”

Lee uses a bamboo guidebook to explain the differences in the grasses while driving visitors around the property in a golf cart.

Whether the bamboo will be used for ground covering, erosion control, hedges, windbreaks, large groves, specimen plants or container plants, Lee says he works with customers to suggest varieties that will work best.

“People tell me where they want the bamboo to go and how much light they have. I ask how much space they have and even if it’s just two feet, a medium sized bamboo will work,” said Lee.

Bamboo upbringing

Lee’s love for bamboo stemmed from his upbringing in Hong Kong where he says, “bamboo was everywhere.”

While living in the Lake Grove area of Lake Oswego, Lee wanted to use bamboo as screening between his house and neighbor’s house but says he couldn’t find any. So he started to grow bamboo. And when the bamboo outgrew his area, he realized he needed more space. He sold his restaurant businesses and moved to West Linn to sell and cultivate bamboo full time.

Lee planted one bamboo tree in 1996, and from there his West Linn business expanded. Paths twist and curve around different bamboo varieties and colors – some from Chili, some from Japan, some yellow, some black and some square shaped.

“I think bamboo grows pretty quick,” he says, “you just have to water it.”

Bamboo grows in two different methods: clumping and running. Clumping bamboo spreads underground slowly and is better behaved than running bamboo. Running bamboo, if not controlled, will grow away from the mother plant in places it wasn’t designated to grow. Heavy plastic is often used as a barrier underneath the soil to tame running bamboo. Lee uses this technique and suggests it to his customers.

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