Bamboo is a regenerating grass, native to China, which grows much quicker than hardwood trees and reaches maturity within around 5 years. This makes bamboo an extremely sustainable product and is becoming a popular eco-friendly alternative to wooden flooring.
Most bamboo forests are harvested every five years, carefully by hand, to ensure the self-regenerating root is not damaged. This means that bamboo does not need replanting like trees, and it will continue to grow once harvesting is complete. During the harvesting of a bamboo forest, a systematic approach is used to ensure that the whole forest is not flattened. The bamboo is usually colour coded into seasons and cut after the fifth year, once it has reached maturity. This allows for healthy, abundant crops of bamboo to be harvested in different sections of the forest each year.
For further information on how bamboo flooring is made, see our article: 'How is bamboo flooring made?'
