The Bamboo Fence: Beauty Meets Strength

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Nothing embodies beauty, simplicity and strength like a bamboo fence. In Japan bamboo fencebuilding is an art form. Yet you don't have to be an artist, or even particularly handy, to construct this basic picket design derived from Japanese tea garden fences. It is a pleasure both to build and to behold.

What Poles?

If you're new to bamboo growing, you'll need to purchase poles from a retailer to make your fence. Either that, or wait a few years until your plantings are ready to harvest. A new planting of bamboo may produce canes of useful size in three to four years, but these canes need to mature for another three years before being harvested for poles. A final option is to harvest poles (with permission, of course) from an established grove in your area.

What Design?

You can build a simple picket fence entirely of bamboo, or you can combine it with standard lumber. You can wire bamboo pickets to a chain link fence or to bamboo stringers attached to peeler pole posts, as described here.

Bamboo pickets can be arranged on the fence in many ways. The tops, neatly cut just above the node, can be arranged in a straight line or in a random, ragged pattern. The pickets can be hung on one or both sides of a bamboo stringer (stringers are the horizontal supports of a fence; see diagram). Pickets can also be arranged in a repeating pattern, such as two together, then a space, then one, then a space, then two, and so on. Or they can be alternated with cedar boards.

Choosing and Attaching the Pickets

Take a bamboo pole and look at it closely. Now turn it 90 degrees. If it was straight before, it likely is zigzag now. This has to do with the way bamboo branches grow.

Bamboo branches arise alternately at each branched node of a culm, but all branches lie in the same plane. If the lowest branch is on the right side, then the next branch is on the left side and the third on the right, and so on. The culm bends slightly away from the base of the branches; thus a bamboo pole will be straight in the unbranched plane and slightly bent in the branched plane.

To make the fence shown here, set the poles with the straight plane facing the observer.

In traditional Japanese fences, bamboo pickets are attached with string because the poles of most hardy bamboos split when nailed. At Bamboo Hardwoods, Inc., where I work, we've found that galvanized wire is easier, stronger and lasts longer than string. For aesthetics, some people cover the wire with thick black string. Others use black plastic-coated telephone wire. If you decide to use string instead of wire, note that natural fibers rot and lose their strength very quickly. Artificial fibers such as those found in fishermen's seining twine hold up well and are very strong. Recently we discovered that the black plastic cable ties sold in hardware stores make quick and ready fasteners. The black color looks good, if a bit shiny when new.