Wanted: Bamboo Buyers and Brokers

       This is an exciting time of year at Annie Leila's. The camellias are still colorful, the azaleas are about to bloom, and the bamboo will soon be popping up out of the ground! The property is almost nine acres with an amazing bamboo grove which I adore. Since buying the property in 2016, I have learned a lot about this evergreen plant and there appears to be even more to understand.

      

      Like most people, I've been aware of bamboo flooring for decades. I've never installed it, but I'd use it on the right project. And I also knew about bamboo being used to build scaffolding and homes in other parts of the world, or to make fishing poles, rafts, wind chimes, Tiki torches, and fencing. But now I know that it's also used to make shirts, drinking straws, toilet paper, skate boards, toothbrushes, underwear, structural building components, bicycles, and the list keeps going. Several years ago I starting hearing about the future of bamboo farming in the United States. It's an intriguing narrative and the upside sounds enormous.

    Besides making useful things, bamboo shoots are a super food with health benefits. Plus, bamboo can also be used to make tea, beer, and wine! B

    Bamboo has two harvests each year; spring for the edible shoots and fall for the trees/timber to make things. And these harvests don't wipe out the grove by clear cutting. It's a managed process which allows the majority of the plants to keep growing.   

    The bamboo grove that runs through Annie Leila's covers several acres and I have access to other sizable thickets in the area; at least ten acres total. St. George, SC is next to the intersection of Interstates 26 and 95 making it easy to transport spring or fall harvests quickly. 

    Since 2019, I've been reading and learning about the bamboo market, but have yet to connect with a buyer or broker serious about my shoots or trees. If you know of someone in the bamboo industry please contact me or pass on my info.: bloodsweatandpigsears@hotmail.com 

Restoring Charleston: Bonus Material

The Whetsell Bridal Cabin

    In the summer of 2016, we rehabbed the Appleby House and the Bridal Cabin, filming both projects for television. Until this week, I had no idea of the link between these two properties on opposite sides of St. George, South Carolina.

The Appleby House

    After the Appleby House was condemned by building officials, the descendants donated it to the local historical society, and this group sold it to me. The Queen Anne was built at the turn of the century to replace the family home beside Appleby's Methodist Church, a home which was lost to fire in the late 1800's. This Appleby property was the mustering site for Company C of the 24th Regiment of SC Volunteers in the war between the states, when St. George was known as "George's Station." M.T., A.C., and Adam Appleby were members of Co. C and the church was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.

Annie Leila's

    The Whetsell land was vacant and overgrown when I spotted it during the winter of 2016. At over nine acres, it contained two houses, perfect since the TV producers had asked me to buy three pig's ears, and I already had a ratified contract for Appleby. I researched the property at the county's deeds office and began working to connect with the owner(s). As it turned out, the person who owned the tract had inherited it from someone who had also acquired it through probate. The owner lived in the Upstate; they had no affinity for the property and were happy to sell it to me. After I took ownership in the spring of 2016, I began to learn the history of the property and the family that had owned it for over a century. Mamie and John M. Whetsell Sr. built the Bridal Cabin for their son John Jr. and his fiancé Annie Leila Parler when they got married just before World War II. Then when the elder Whetsells passed on, Junior and Annie lived in the main house for the rest of their lives, using the small cottage as a guest house or rental. Their last house is my current project; Annie Leila's. 

J.M.Whetsell Sr. plat

    This week, I discovered a really old plat of a property that John Whetsell Sr. bought in 1903. The two hundred and fifty acre parcel was on the Edisto River. Along with the Edisto, there is a path through the property labeled Charleston Road. This property was owned by 24th Reg. Capt. A.C. Appleby, and Mr. Whetsell bought it after reaching an accord with A.S. Appleby.    

    Even though this document is handwritten, I can make it all out, save one word:  The above represents a tract of land containing two hundred and fifty acres and is part of what is known as the A.C. Appleby land laid out and measured by request of A.S. Appleby, lines S40.11 + S50E taken from a plat-made by W.C. Griffith dated Nov. 7, 1873 and has such marked ___ bearings and boundaries as are shown in above plat surveyed July 22, 1903. By Jno. L. Gavin Surveyor + C.E.

    Restoring Charleston started with the Appleby House and ended with the Whetsell's Bridal Cabin. Even though both projects were finished years back, it was still very cool to find this plat that connects these two prominent St. George Families.