Writing this column gives me a plant-addict’s form of whiplash. I visit a rose garden; I want to grow roses. I tour a potted paradise and fall in love with terracotta tubs. Every garden I see leaves me with a new obsession. I’m used to it now, but I must admit that of all the obsessions I expected to acquire, this week’s caught me off guard: bamboo! Many people are a little wary of bamboo. It has a bit of a bad rep. Fortunately, it also has the world’s best spokesperson; a man whose passion for the plant is unmatched and contagious — Peter Hicks. Entering Peter’s bamboo farm, Yarri Springs, is like arriving in a foreign land. It’s more jungle than farm. His hand-built house is surrounded by bamboo, in every variety imaginable. There are low-growing clumps of feathery bamboo; their leaves turned briefly golden in the morning light. There are towering, thick stems of bamboo, swaying gently in the breeze. By the creek that runs through his property, giant yellow bamboo stems give the nearby native bush an otherworldly feel, as if you have one foot in Western Australia and the other in a Japanese forest. “I wanted to be an organic farmer,” Peter tells me, as he pours hot tea into two big mugs. “Fruits and nuts. Then I got into bamboo — a friend gave us one — a clumping one”. From that point on, Peter was hooked. He now grows (and sells) more than 70 varieties, as well as fruit and nut trees, on a farm that was one of the first organic ones in WA. His home was built using principles of sustainable architecture pioneered by Bill Mollison, one of the fathers of permaculture. And, not surprisingly, it is filled with bamboo, too. There are bamboo handles on the kitchen knives, a bamboo clothesline hanging from the roof, bamboo rails on the staircase, bamboo xylophones, bottle openers and barstools. Sitting there, in a shirt that was (coincidentally) made from bamboo fibres, I am only beginning to appreciate just how versatile this material is. “You can make your house out of it, your furniture out of it, your coffin out of it! You’re only limited by your imagination,” Peter grins. “It’s the most useful plant on the planet. Some people say coconuts are, but I think bamboo is. Last time I heard it had thousands of practical uses — It can replace plastic, steel, aluminium, fibreglass. You can even eat it”. There is so much more I want to tell you about Peter Hicks’ farm and home — from the river stones he collected by hand to build his house, and the greenhouse that leans against the glass wall of his living room, passively heating it, to the bamboo that grows right up to his veranda, its roots holding the steep slope behind the house together. Suffice to say, this is a man as interesting and versatile as the bamboo he cultivates. Now, excuse me while I go grow myself a patch of this magical plant!