By Victoria Torley

Black bamboo (Phyllostachys nigra), is “just” grass with an attitude, but, oh my, what an attitude.

Imagine a lawn of black stemmed grass leafed with green. Imagine that grass growing to nine meters, and you have Phyllostachys nigra. 

What a sight it is. They have beautiful dark straight culms that begin in green and darken to black when it is time to harvest them.

I can’t wait to harvest some but I have to wait at least three years. Drats!

My friend, Mary Jane, and I found Bambu Tico Farm by accident when we were looking for Ed Bernhardt’s New Dawn Center. We drove right by the Center (the sign was too small) when I saw the bamboo sign.

Yes, I have been waiting to see it for years and just never got that far south. Anyway, I convinced Mary Jane that we just had to see what it was about. We were glad we did.

I had not imagined the scope of the farm! We drove in over a little bridge and wandered up to the office by following signs. It looked as though the workers and their families all lived comfortably right on the grounds. Then we wandered.

We snooped in sheds and climbed stairs. We discovered finished furniture that had us both wishing for a bigger car. We found pieces of bamboo that had been cut into unusual shapes. Then we watched some workers with a huge vat of boiling water.

When I say ‘huge’ I do not exaggerate. The trough of boiling water must have been 25 feet in length. One man stood at an open end and pulled boiling shafts of bamboo out of the trough while a second plunged his sponge-covered hands into cold water, grabbed the bamboo poles, wet them down to cool them and tossed them on a pile of fresh green poles. 

The entire process takes 15-25 minutes and removes a resin from the bamboo. It also leaves it more pliable. It was hot sweaty work, but the pile just kept getting bigger.

The farm is fantastic. There are groves of different bamboo, about 50 in all, in various stages of maturity and a nursery for young bamboo ready to be planted as the older bamboo is harvested. Luckily, some of those younger bamboo plants are also for sale, hence my black bamboo. I thought I was buying tiny plants, but it took two people to move them into place in the yard.

Just a few more years, and maybe a few more visits to Bambu Tico, and I will be ready to learn what’s next. Don’t you love that there is always a “next”?

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Find more amazing stories about gardening in Costa Rica on the Costa Rica Garden website. Regarding questions on this article, Ms. Victoria Torley, gardener columnist, can be reached by emailing victoriatorley1@gmail.com.