Bamboo!

I love bamboo. Someday I hope to have land where I can grow a grove of bamboo or at least a privacy hedge. Aesthetically, I think it is beautiful, both in it's natural form and especially when it is used for lumber.

The fact that it has so many uses is also great. Recently, I worked on a project where bamboo had been made into a cloth and was used for lining. Bamboo makes the only natural anti-bacterial cloth, perfect for athletic wear!

Bamboo also feeds Pandas. It makes up 99% of their diet. In places where the bamboo has been over-harvested, the pandas starve. Bamboo also feeds people too. Bamboo shoots are often found in Asian cuisine.

Bamboo is quick-growing, high, straight, very strong, and evergreen. The Chinese have compared "fair, straightforward, sincere people of high spiritual qualities" to bamboo since ancient times. Bamboo is the natural symbol of the wealth of nothingness because it grows into space, which for the masters of Zen represents the center of spiritual development. It is a symbol of fertility, altruism and a happy family in the image of a mother plant feeding her family around her.

Bamboo.