Adventure in Yokohama Citizen Forest: Witch’s Broom, Japanese style: making a bamboo broom

Witch’s brooms, aka besom brooms, are not only for Halloween. They are damned practical tool for sweeping a front yard, or tidying up forest floor after forestry activity. In Japan, we use witch’s brooms made of bamboo. These days those sold in Japanese hardware warehouses are made in China. They are modestly priced, but according to my mum, “They’re worn out very quickly! There is a problem of cost performance here.” Er, well, I don’t want to enter issues of trade disputes. But one thing is for sure. In Niiharu Citizen Forest 新治市民の森, we Lovers of Niiharu Citizen Forest 新治市民の森愛護会 are taking care of the bamboo forests year-round in order to tackle really vigorous growth of the forest that can affect the other vegetation. So, especially from fall to winter, thinning bamboos is regular activity. One thinned bamboo produces a loooooong trunk, and piles of boughs and twigs. City of Yokohama asks us to bring it all to a depo yard where later garbage collectors hired by the City come to pick them up. Some becomes chips for mulching in the parks of the city. But many are just burned. WASTE! Instead of importing brooms from China, we can make it here with continuous and abundant supply of the materials!

It looks nice these brooms …
My mum hate them, though, because

This is how they turned out within a month.

Lovers in action for Niiharu’s bamboo forest.

A provisional depo next to a bamboo forest in Niiharu

This is the boughs and leaves
attached to the above bamboos.
They are quicker to dry,
so the volume becomes at least ½ within a week.

Niiharu’s depo for thinned vegetation.

So, I promised my mum I would make a broom from bamboos harvested in Niiharu. I did a bit of internet search and found this site telling us how to make a bamboo broom. One weekend afternoon, from a depo yard I packed a modest amount of bamboo twigs and a bamboo trunk that would be a nice broom handle for my project. Then my seniors of Niiharu Lovers said, “Naomi, are you going to make a bamboo broom?” Yes. “Er, I think you’d have a problem.” ? “Yes, you know? Bamboo trunks are waxy. It’s difficult to tie the twigs to it.” “Unless you fasten those twigs very tightly, the broom will fall apart when we sweep the ground.” “I myself made a broom from these bamboos before. It was extremely hard to secure the shoots with a wire. In the end I used a vice borrowed from the Niiharu woodworks atelier.” Whoops. One of my seniors then showed me his work now extensively used for forestry activity. It is a beautiful broom … with a help of vice. “So, I don’t recommend you to do it home.” Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm …

This is indeed a beautiful work.
He said he used one whole bamboo tree,
and a vice, to make this broom.

To make it, first,
he processed the boughs and twigs to remove leaves;
sprayed them water and covered them by a plastic tarp for 3 days.
Then, he plucked leaves by hand.
Imagine doing it for one bamboo tree.
It’s an effort.

The point is how to attach the boughs around a trunk.
Could you see it is secured in a two-story way?
He said near the end of the handle,
he pegged a nail to pull the wire.

After fastening twigs,
he inserted several more twigs in small gaps
to make the bundle tighter.

“Instead, just make a broom without a handle. It’s a useful tool, and professional landscapers utilize them to clean up smaller spaces.” “I think that would be enough for home usage. You don’t have to struggle with tying the twigs to the trunk.” I see. So, I changed my strategy to make a bamboo broom without a handle. Below is how I did: