Celebrating Visionaries in Bamboo Innovation

Ned Jaquith was founder, owner and manager of Bamboo Garden Nursery in North Plains, Oregon, USA. This nursery is the largest bamboo nursery in the United States, with most likely the largest collection of temperate bamboos growing on more than 20 acres. It sells to growers and to the public, and hosts workshops, tours and special events.

Ned Jaquith was born in Kingman, Arizona USA in 1939 to Nina Rose and Odhus Jaquith, who worked in the nearby desert gold mines. As a small child, he followed his maternal granddad around the garden. During World War II, his parents had a large garden and sold small amounts of produce to a nearby grocery store. Ned was always in the garden helping, despite being only five years old. As a teenager, he had his own vegetable garden. From the age of six until leaving for college, they lived in the small town of Winterhaven, California, one half mile from Arizona and four miles from Baja California, Mexico. Due to Hollywood movies featuring Tarzan and Jungle Jim, and frequent trips to the San Diego Zoo, he developed a fondness for the tropical look of bamboo.

In 1976 Ned moved to Portland, Oregon, bringing a start of Bambusa oldhamii with him, not realizing that it was not a species hardy for the Pacific Northwest. It perished, as did his next bamboo, a Phyllostachys vivax, which was given to him by a friend (it flowered shortly after it was planted). In 1980, Ned went to a plant sale in Pasadena, California, hosted by the friends of the Huntington Botanical Garden. There, he bought starts of 12 different bamboos, and joined the newly formed American Bamboo Society.

In 1983 Ned helped create the Pacific Northwest Chapter of the ABS, with friend and colleague Daphne Lewis. The next year, he was elected to the Board of Directors of the ABS and attended his first overseas bamboo meeting in Puerto Rico (what now is considered the 1st World Bamboo Congress). Through the years following, he published PNW chapter newsletters and wrote articles for both the national and local publications. He served as vice president of the PNW in 1991-92, President of the PNW in 1997-98, and again president of PNW in 1999 to 2001. In 2003 he was awarded an Honorary Lifetime membership to the American Bamboo Society.

Ned started the nursery Bamboo Garden at his home in 1983, and moved to Milwaukie, Oregon in 1984. Nearly 300 different species of bamboo were collected at that site, when finally, it had outgrown the small lot. It was time to move to the present 20-acre location in North Plains. Ned had the ability to propagate and grow bamboo so successfully that Bamboo Garden amassed the largest collection of rare temperate bamboo in the country. If a rare species became available, Ned seemed to get a start, and then, in turn, he donated the resulting start to the chapter and national auctions. He also loved to grow bamboo from seeds, which takes a great deal of skill, and tons of patience.

Bamboo Garden Nursery has supplied bamboo for many large commercial landscaping projects including: Tacoma Zoo, Portland Classical Chinese Garden, Portland Japanese Garden, Oregon Zoo, Wellesley College in MA, Wayne Morse Courthouse in Eugene, OR, Asia Trail of the National Zoo in Washington DC, Shangri La Project in Vancouver, BC, and many others. The staff works closely with landscaping companies, providing healthy and beautiful bamboo for commercial and residential landscapes, locally and afar.

Ned loved to travel to just about anywhere to see bamboo. He visited nurseries, arboreta, botanical gardens, private gardens and the wild to see bamboo around the world. He attended every annual conference of the American Bamboo Society, as well as several European Bamboo Society events. He attended the World Bamboo Congress in Costa Rica and Belgium.

Sadly, Ned was diagnosed with cancer in July 2012, and despite the best efforts from local doctors and immense support from friends and family, Ned passed away in late September 2012.

After his death, his wife and friends founded a charity named the Ned Jaquith Foundation. This non-profit foundation commemorates the legacy of Ned Jaquith, a consummate horticulturist and nurseryman specialized in bamboo, and who was particularly interested in bamboo research, propagation and art. He also was a guy who loved life, cherished his friends, and knew how to laugh.

The purpose of the Foundation is to encourage and support bamboo research projects increasing the collective knowledge of bamboo. The Foundation supports the goals of the American Bamboo Society (ABS) but is a separate working body, administered by an advisory committee. Grant funding is provided to students and researchers who wish to work within the field of bamboo, focused on such issues as botanical identification, wild and domestic collection, genetic preservation, propagation techniques, bamboo art and bamboo-related environmental concerns (i.e. habitat restoration, etc.). The Foundation has non-profit status, allowing individuals, commercial businesses and other societies & organizations to give donations as United States tax-deductible contributions. For more information about the grant application process and the grants that have been awarded, please see the website, www.nedjaquithfoundation.org

Ned was truly a great friend of bamboo, and to anyone who loved bamboo. He generously shared his knowledge and his plants. To honor Ned, Mexican bamboo specialist Eduardo Ruiz-Sanchez named a newly discovered Mexican species after him; Chusquea nedjaquithii. <Phytotaxa 184 (1) 2014>

He was a true pioneer in bamboo in the United States, and he is genuinely missed. He lives forever in the Moso grove.