Bamboo

Here's my deck before and after I planted bamboo of various types in the pots of weeds on my upstairs deck. I had been meaning to do something with the deck plants (or lack thereof) ever since Caroline killed all the plants I had on the deck. She was looking after my place a couple of years ago when I was on some adventure somewhere in the world. She decided to give my plants an extra watering with the hose even though I had a drip irrigation system operating on a timer. Normally, that would be no big deal, except that she finished watering, she turned the water off (I'm sure she thought she was being a good and responsible daughter), but turned off the water to the irrigation system as well. I came back home a couple of weeks later in the heat of the summer to find all my plants dead or dying.

Oh, and a word to the wise. If you Google bamboo in Seattle, one of the first businesses to come up is The Bamboo Gardens in Queen Anne. Cool, I thought, that's not too far away. I hopped in the car and went right over. Turned out it was an oriental vegetarian restaurant. Not exactly what I had in mind.