Bamboo the Greatest Advertisement: J.B. Keys of View Royal, 1936
"Glorified grass of the orient thrives"
To Jonathan Basil Keys of View Royal, bamboo in 1937 was the “$1,000 publicity plant, the greatest of advertisement of the congenial climate of the coast”. He thought bamboo groves, “their paper leaves rustling, waving in the gentle breeze” would beckon the people of the 'frozen plains' of Canada, and bring them to View Royal and the island. The newspaper thought so too,
There is a good deal of truth in his enthusiasm for, to the average tourist the bamboo, with azure skies and turquoise waters shimmering in the sun, [would bring] all the mystery and romance of the orient. (Victoria Daily Times, January 11, 1936)
It was believed that Mr. Keys, had proved the allure of the bamboo in his garden on top of four mile hill which overlooked the Esquimalt harbour. His interest in bamboo has started 45 years previously when as a boy he admired the bushes at his fathers home in England. He had also spent ten years 'in the tropics' where he saw bambo…