Judith's cedar pergola...how to top with bamboo?

Our son came yesterday with a load of cedar boards cut with his bandsaw mill and finished our board fence and most importantly finished the top to the pergola!!!
I plan to lay some of our cured bamboo across the top now but have not thought of the best way to fasten down...it will be good for a few years and then will need replacing so I didn't want to have it too complicated to remove.

Any ideas?

right now I'm letting the virginia creeper and mimosa and passion flower vine have their way but I really want to plant roses on one side and two grapes  on the other...and let a clematis share it also 🙄

That pergola is beautiful - good job!

What diameter is your bamboo? Is it to provide more shade or as a plant support primarily?

Thanks Nancy...I'm so happy with the results😊he did a wonderful job and sweat buckets all day...hot and humid here.

The bamboo I plan to use is an inch more or less and really only to support the vines but shade will happen.

I know we could drill holes and nail or screw each piece down but thought maybe there might be another way we have not considered?

Maybe somehow sandwiched between two boards on each end?  can't quite picture that though.....some way to just lay it up there loose?

Have you considered lashing the bamboo together and then tying the bamboo around the cross pieces of your pergola?

Twine would not be too obtrusive and you could stain it with the same colour that the cedar has been treated with?

The twine ought to be relatively easier to cut and remove when the times comes to take down the bamboo.

Megan, I had wondered about something like that.
If I could cut the canes to length, then lay them out on the ground to twine together?
If it was a prepared 'mat' I think fastening to the pergola top could be simple.

There's no need for the canes to be closer than two or three inches so I would want some kind of spacers.

Judith Browning wrote:There's no need for the canes to be closer than two or three inches so I would want some kind of spacers.

Perhaps two four inch long pieces  of bamboo lashed between the rods?

that's a good idea Joylynn!
Maybe even short hollow pieces threaded in between the canes.

I do know if I end up with a too complicated and time consuming project I will likely never start or at least never finish it.

I've cut bamboo a little with my pruning saw...this would be a lot of cuts and would need to set up a way to hold more firmly while cutting.

Hello Judith, this video shows how to tie the pieces of bamboo together - I’m sure there must be lots of others.



If you don’t want to bother lashing the spacers to the cross lengths, you could just drill through the nodes of the spacers and the cross lengths and thread a wire through to secure them.

Look forward to seeing what you end up doing.

Judith Browning wrote:

I've cut bamboo a little with my pruning saw...this would be a lot of cuts and would need to set up a way to hold more firmly while cutting.

Hubby bought me a battery powered mini Stihl chainsaw for my Christmas present a few years ago, best present ever - when is your birthday- maybe you could just get it for yourself as an early present🥰

This page has been separated from https://permies.com/t/160/273988/Judith-garden-plans-records-results#3828662  in order to focus on the pergola build.

Thanks, Megan, Ill try to watch your video at the library and it's probably time to check out the Big Bamboo Book again.

I was thinking the canes would be fastened together like a mat...all one direction except possibly the spacers.

I have baleing twine but I find it doesn't weather well.


no new tool for me in the near future but your chain saw sounds great!

At the moment the heat and humidity here is limiting my outdoor time so I have not pulled out any cane from the shed yet.
It might be that I won't add it to the top until the plants I want to grow there are more established....but if it works how I think I could roll it up and store with the other cane.

Megan Palmer wrote: Hubby bought me a battery powered mini Stihl chainsaw for my Christmas present a few years ago, best present ever - when is your birthday- maybe you could just get it for yourself as an early present🥰

Battery chain saws are awesome, but please don't use a chainsaw on bamboo. Bamboo is both very fibrous, and has a high silica content, so ideally use an easy to replace, not too expensive, blade when cutting bamboo.  Most commonly I use one of my tools that will hold a jigsaw type blade, but the foxtail saw version. I have a handle that they fit for hand work, and an actual foxtail saw if I need to cut a lot of it.

I have also used a chop saw with a metal blade if I'm only doing a few cuts. It has a clamp that holds the bamboo securely. So would our electric miter saw, but it's got a decent blade in it, so I'd have to find a cheap blade to use.

For 1" bamboo, you shouldn't need much, but the trick is finding a way to hold it still. I have used a bench vise, being careful not to tighten it too much.

The quickest way I can think to try this would be to cut your bamboo to length, drill holes near the end so the holes will more or less line up with the cross piece. Take string (butcher string size should do), put tape on the end to make an integral "needle", thread it through the holes in sequence, knotting the rope before and after the hole, so the bamboo is trapped by the knots. Then you just have to stretch it out on top and tie down the corners. This will make it easy to remove for the winter, if it's not needed then, which will make it last longer.

Doing some sort of a square crosses in each direction, tying every intersection, takes a *lot* of rope, and a *lot* of time, unless I'm just slow at it. Unless you've got a jig set up, the bamboo is constantly slipping around. Unless it's held up off a surface, you can't slide the rope around the underside without it again, sliding all over the place. Even though it *looks* straight and all the same size, mine certainly isn't. If I try that again, I think I'd cheat and use hockey tape! I might cover the tape with rope, but at least everything would be held while I worked.

Judith, did you find a solution you are happy with? Or like so many of my projects, is it on indefinite stall?

Jay, have not made any progress although I did go stare at the bamboo storage🙄

We are having our real summer now...100 degree days and no rain so my outdoor work window has shrunk,...watering and harvesting...watering mostly the annuals and a few newly planted trees and shrubs.

This pause at the pergola might be a good thing because we are talking about putting muscadines there now and for them we would need something more substancial than the bamboo I think?

This is our usual....long decision making process and long project planning......implementation sometimes happens a little quicker.

Thanks for the suggestions for cutting the bamboo!
I often times rush the garden cuts with loppers but for curtain rods and other things (when I was weaving I used straight pieces for hangers for the clothes I had for sale) I either used a hacksaw or Steve's hand saw and then a rasp for smoothing. those canes look as pretty and golden as ever since they've been stored and used indoors.

'indefinite stall' is a good way to put it...things here are constantly getting reshuffled priority wise....give us some cool fall days and we'll be back in gear again😊

Judith Browning wrote: 'indefinite stall' is a good way to put it...things here are constantly getting reshuffled priority wise....give us some cool fall days and we'll be back in gear again😊

I have had many projects that went on 'indefinite stall' - usually until one morning while I was just coming awake in bed and my brain said, "that's the way to do it - that would work!" Then the project moved fast and got finished.

Muscadines specifically don't grow in my ecosystem, but other grapes do. Bamboo might still work, but I would just use more of it, closer spaced.

Bamboo is surprisingly strong! The real question is whether it its strong enough to keep the bl--dy deer away from my espalier pear before they kill the poor thing!

This is our usual....long decision making process and long project planning......implementation sometimes happens a little quicker.

This. This is my life.

Joylynn Hardesty wrote:

This is our usual....long decision making process and long project planning......implementation sometimes happens a little quicker.

This. This is my life.

hahaha.....
I have to say though that sometimes that long hesitation is good and you find you did not need that item or project as bad as you thought.
Sometimes, I've even felt fortunate that we could not afford everything we 'think' we want to do...so as frustrating as slowwww is, it might be better in the end....or maybe I just got old and more laid back🙄