5 Benefits of a Bamboo Fence

a bamboo fence with ivy growing down it

Using a bamboo fence in place of traditional lumber is a great way to keep your landscaping efforts completely green as well as beautiful. Landscaping your yard should be a job that is fun and rewarding. A fence should work with the things that it surrounds as well as complement nature. A bamboo fence is one such fence can do all of that and more. The article that follows will share with you several benefits of installing a bamboo fence.

Completely Green

If you are concerned with the environment then you may want to consider a bamboo fence. Bamboo is, in fact, not wood but grass. Bamboo grows faster than any other plant on the planet. It grows so fast, in fact, that every three years it can be harvested and made into wood. A cedar tree, by comparison, would take anywhere from 30 years to 50 years to be able to be harvested for wood again. A regular forest can be harvested for 20 times less wood than a bamboo forest. Bamboo can also be harvested many times without impacting the environment.

Stronger and Harder than Wood

Bamboo may only be a weed (or grass if you prefer) but it is much stronger than wood, making a bamboo fence superior to wooden ones. Fences are not the only things that can be made from bamboo. Bamboo has been used to make bicycles and even homes. A bamboo fence is twice as strong as cedar and up to three times stronger than normal timber. A bamboo fence, assuming it is properly installed, can hold up to hurricane winds. Termites cannot digest the high amount of silica found in bamboo which makes it naturally resistant to termites.

Cheaper than Normal Fencing

Because bamboo grows so quickly and can be harvested much more than regular forests; bamboo is incredibly affordable. A bamboo fence costs much less than vinyl fencing and is much stronger as well as easier to install. Bamboo does cost more than cedar but many agree that it's well worth the cost as it will last much longer than cedar.

Simple or Complex

Bamboo, thanks to its natural color and shading, can go with just about anything you put outside. Bamboo fencing can be an intricate work of art or as basic as you could ever imagine. You can install posts of bamboo and then bind them together with twine or purchase rolls of bamboo that you can unfurl over the posts. These rolls are easy to install and wired from behind so that you cannot see the wires. You could have a normal wooden fence frame out the bamboo to create a picture frame.

Lack of Rot

A bamboo fence can easily last 20 years. Bamboo fence will retain its strength despite discoloring or cracking. Bamboo should never be in direct contact with the ground as it can erode. If you don't want your fence to discolor you can coat it with varnish that resists ultraviolet light. Tying bamboo together is easy and just requires the use of twine.