We built a secret Japanese privacy garden

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We asked a guy what he was doing with all his bamboo and he let us take whatever we wanted so we decided to use it to build a bamboo privacy fence and secret little Japanese zen garden outside our bathroom.

0:00-1:17 Bamboo thieves
1:17-2:17 The location
2:17-3:21 Releasing our foster gecko!!
3:21-5:21 Prep
5:21-6:27 How to split bamboo
6:27-10:00 Frame + shoji design
10:00-11:00 Spinning in a dress
11:00-14:10 Snack break and Japanese ramen chef Poki
14:10-16:15 Surprise guest Grace!!
16:15-17:10 How to clean bamboo
17:10-18:57 Attaching bamboo to the frame
18:57-20:48 Plants
20:48-22:11 Ta da!!

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so bamboo grows crazy fast and if you own land with a bamboo thicket you have to thin it out You don’t want them falling down on people’s houses and stuff What you have to do is you cut it down and then pay to dispose of it because there’s no good way to get rid of all of it We happen to meet someone who owns one of these bamboo thicket He has gladly agreed to let us take as much bamboo as we want because it just saves him money So now we’re going to do a bunch of stuff with bamboo I saw like four or five of these for 30 bucks on Amazon For us who don’t have bamboo this is very exciting For him who does have bamboo it’s a hassle Nice I’m so lucky and I’m so glad that I decided to talk to that guy Yeah Hey what are you doing with all that bamboo he was like “Yep yeah yeah that would be great.” Hi Haku Can I help everyone wants to know what we’re doing For June’s birthday one year I made him this bath caddy and set up an outdoor lighted little privacy garden I did a lot in one month and I didn’t have time to like set this up really well So it’s shifted over time So I think we’re going to try to build a bamboo fence Hey you guys going to help [Music] i loved your presents Thank you Rachel These are still in really nice shape We should use them somewhere We’re making a bamboo fence Yeah Oh you can see the soil Yep Maybe if you want to like plant trees you like to make it look like a super cozy Japanese you know garden style And then we can put a little tiny chair and climb out the window and enjoy a secret garden While I was taking care of that area the Gimmori just climbing on me Oh it’s a big boy Oh my god Just like this Pretty boy Look at you Oh good boy Good boy Well he’s in a good spot now This is where a lot of Yamorti live It’s time to go outside Normally you’re not supposed to move them while they’re sleeping because it stresses them out but it’s best to put them outside during the day when it’s warmest Yep And I just found three a few days ago I want to check Yeah there is Big boy Oh and there’s one down here Oh another one here Yeah So sorry for disturbing your sleep babies Look how much smaller she is compared to those boys we found Oh I love her so much Gonna set it against the house and prop this door open so it can’t shut on her I will come check in on her periodically throughout the day to see if she’s still here For now goodbye I guess Bye baby Good luck See you around Good luck My safety glasses today are sunglasses because you can’t see anything I have most of the pieces for our bamboo fence prepared I’m going to start by cutting slots in these for the support beams These green bamboo are very heavy Over time they will dry and turn a yellow But until then I want to make sure that this can support all of the weight Also remember our front garden we planted this freaking thing went crazy It’s everywhere June you can’t even see the fence that they’re growing around anymore They are the fence Our whole yard exploded with flowers this year I’m wondering if it’s because we had a slightly colder than normal winter We even got to harvest cherries before the birds got them for the first time since we moved in This will be the very top of the fence You can do this Good job I’ll do my best Me too Team work Team work Okay I finished removing all the trees Whoa it’s so even now Yeah the trees that we planted have been relocated Yep And next I’m going to add these compost and fodo humes I think and mix in and improve the soil so the new trees we’re going to plant can grow better [Music] All right prepping the soil done [Music] So the bamboo lengths You can hear one of our neighbors also using their circular saw Everyone’s making stuff We are in a neighborhood of people who work outdoors So screw here and then screw here It will be in between these All right Right Right So I should cut the bamboo here Yes [Music] Nice It’s so fast and quick Let’s test it out [Music] The spots where the shoots were coming out will be the side of the bamboo which is where June’s going to split it in half This is the Japanese method of splitting bamboo Tada Nice This is free Yeah Oh this is going to look so cool Judy It already looks cool Hi sweetie I got to use the circular saw It’s going to be really noisy for your ears Good girl It seems like you found a much better way to cut the bamboo to painting We are painting this completely black this time This roller is not rolling I got paint on my clothes Sorry about that This is Japanese rain It makes everything dusty We get a lot of dust storms from the Gobi Desert It blows sand over into Japan Sometimes the weather forecast in Japan will say sand This is one of four panels I figure we should lay out some of this bamboo in here to get an idea of how much we’re going to need Apparently this white stuff on some of this bamboo is oil I looked up Japanese YouTube videos on how to remove it and a lot of people use ash We don’t have ash but I can try to do something to remove a little bit of it later but for now it’s not a priority This is really cool Okay Normally when I design stuff I take months to redesign and work out things so I don’t end up with situations like this where part of the way through the build I realize something is going to be super ugly These pieces have beveled ends and I need to put a front frame on top of the bamboo so the bamboo can screw into it from the back so that the bamboo has something to connect to And then this line is going to be very visible everywhere It’s ugly It’s so ugly It looks bad It looks really amateur which we are We’re amateurs But I don’t want it to look like I’m making something amateur-ish I can do better than this I don’t like this So I am going to turn this problem into a feature and make this design look kind of like a shojour I was intimidated by the amount of work that I made for myself but it actually hasn’t been too bad It’s just lug cutting and okay it’ll be I mean you know what for jumping through here that’s a surprisingly small amount of stuff to mess up so I’m okay with it Good job Aaku They’re usually pretty good These are just set out so that I know I have like all of the sets I started with straight sticks of wood and then I cut them into all these pieces and now I’m doing the timeconsuming process of slowly assembling everything These blocks give me the right spacing This tightens it up Nothing has to be beautiful I just went to stay together We’re not even going to be seeing these up close And this is the back side of everything I haven’t even started painting yet And I got paint on my hand underneath the glove on both hands I don’t know what I’m doing wrong Cats are going to go into the bedroom with June while I paint overnight very nice and neatly This is going to take me a while The good news is that painting all 16 of these is going to take so long that by the time I’m done this side will be dry so I could just flip it over and start painting the other side It is 3:00 a.m and I am done with the first coat I’m going to bed You may be wondering why I still have this set up because we already released the Yamorti outside We had leftover European house crickets and we can’t release them outside They’re not native and I can’t just kill them myself I don’t know what to do with them So now the crickets are in the gecko cage We’re taking care of the crickets So once again I can only dress up during a break because we spend all month doing stuff outside This is another dress that Mochi like I could dance in this I don’t know how to dance but I feel like I could dance in this dress I’m hungry Let’s do snacks Okay I’m ready for snacks What was that it’s fun to move in fun ways when you’re wearing such a flowy dress You don’t understand I guess I don’t understand because I’ve never worn a flowy dress This is a joy you should experience Okay everyone should get to enjoy this Glory Normalize men enjoying spinning in dresses Do it Thank you We’ve once again borrowed the concrete breaker from our neighbor to start digging in our post spikes And surprise guest we have Grace here who I have forcefully enlisted into yard work This is I knew what I was getting so I just Yeah just like smash that Wow that’s a lot louder than I thought it was going to be Post number one A bit more Yeah Half a centimeter How do I adjust that matters in construction Grace bring the post this direction Yep Moment of truth June Yeah Not bad Nice If I let go but it’s going to fall finished this second last piece and took a lunch break and came back and ta yami Once I finish this you can just claim this your new territory Hope you like it You okay you seem [Music] okay Here you go I have the really easy job of staring at a level and Grace is doing all the hard work I like how you define hard work as pouring rocks into a hole This is like the 12th time we’ve redone it Try to get things lined up correctly I spent all day doing this by myself So which went mostly go like totally waste but thank you June Two more hits One one strong hit and then one semi strong It’s hard to hold this anyway Just one strong head That might be good Yeah let’s check Okay Oh and the tape on the side is so that we know which piece goes into which That was Grace’s idea It’s brilliant Make fun little designs Nice There we go Okay Grace is here to do the hard work for me All I I just look at the levels and then like screw things Just doing power tools Just Just power tools Just power tools Oh stay here I think that one’s longer now There we go Okay Do the same Rachel is working on the top [Music] Who’s this pretty bird [Music] hey No they sometimes respond if it’s close enough That I could do I was not You made it stop I’m not a good singer Ta These are going to be the main four panels that it’s going to be right in front of the window Next I’m going to clean the bamboo We just need something alkaline to neutralize the oil that’s on the outside It’s bamboo type of baking soda or something I think in Yeah it worked out Yay Now I have 150 pieces to do Before and after Next I’m going to apply this bamboo sealant Show pieces accessories It looks really nice It is time to start putting up some of the bamboo Yay Bamboo time One panel down Yay Yay Yeah I think at some point I’d like to wipe off more of the white oil It’s really noticeable to me But yeah you look great honey We’re getting there [Music] It looks really cool We’re working on the side panels now These are meant to have some spacing in between so that we can get some air flow for the plants and to also get a little bit of sunlight when it’s at like a lower angle Hopefully this will work We’ll find out The final step for privacy is sudare I could have gotten larger sudard and then cut them shorter so they fit the inside exactly But I think this is pretty much good enough And then for the bottom I am just folding this up and putting in some screws to stop it from blowing away The Sudard are cheap and sold everywhere in Japan in the spring and summer so we can replace them as needed Originally at the very end I was planning on putting cross beams on here to help with swaying but I think because of the bamboo it’s swaying way less than before So we may not even need those Another Yamotei He was on my hat Hi Hi little baby Oh my gosh it’s a little one Please protect our house from lots of bugs and mosquitoes There you go Good luck So cute Have fun I transfer this one from the front garden When we moved in it was tiny It’s been like threeish years or something and it’s grown about this tall but it gets red berries It’s cute It’s very good in low light So it’s going to be over here in the corner Kind of reminds you of Christmas The dark green and vivid red Yeah This is nonen This is from Southeast Asia but this variety is called Aichi Aka Aichi red This was cultivated in Aichi Prefecture where I was from This is actually I don’t remember the name I forgot either Neither of us know This also gets blueberry looking thing Oh Yeah I do see one What i didn’t even know that There are two here And then we have the miji of course and type of squishy type of horse tail that kind of looks like bamboo but it’s not bamboo It’s It has nice texture We’ve come this far [Music] The soil here I needed to improve a lot Oh got it Ready yep Maybe like that That looks pretty nice to me Okay For the first year you plant a tree you have to water it really frequently until the roots can get established And a good way to make sure that it gets enough water is building this little moat barrier around it Water will like pull in it a little bit and then sink straight down into the roots the roots can have a longer time to try to absorb water There are a lot of ways to plant trees and pick up trees Um this is one of the things I learned from professionals when we bought a bunch of trees Done planting [Music] It looks so nice Yeah we just got to hang up the lights now All right I forgot Sticky This looks so nice Yeah Good job We did it We did it It looks great I like it a lot I like it a lot too Can’t wait to take a good bath tonight Anyway thank you so much for watching Wish I got the name myself See you guys next time Bye We did it [Music] [Music] Rachel was editing the video and then I just noticed I don’t know how I didn’t notice Hi That’s a girl Do you think that’s our girl how many yum morty do you think we have in our yard there’s so many 37 No there’s got to be way more than way way more than 37 Oh she’s climbing Cute She keeps looking over here just like my other girl did So I think I’m going to bring the cricket cage over