China is known as the Kingdom of Bamboo because it is the country with the most bamboo in the world. More than 400 species of bamboo, one third of all known species in the world, grow in China. The areas    1    produce the most bamboo are south of Yangtze River.

Bamboo was    2    (close) connected with the daily lives of people in ancient China. Su Dongpo,    3    literary giant of the Song Dynasty, said that people could not live    4     bamboo, and people of the time used bamboo as firewood and to make tiles, paper, rafts, hats, rain capes, and    5    (shoe).

In the Han Dynasty, bamboo    6    (use) for paper making because it produced high- quality paper and was    7    (expensive);three tons of bamboo could yield one ton of paper pulp(纸浆). And bamboo is still an important raw material for paper making today. Some 1,600 years ago, people wrote with brushes on xuan paper    8    (make) from young bamboo, and xuan paper is still popular for Chinese calligraphy and paintings.

Tall and graceful with luxuriant foliage(枝叶),bamboo is an    9    (idea) plant for household courtyards and parks. It tolerates the heat of summer and the cold of winter, and it regenerates after    10    (cut).

2 . Five Tasks for Your Winter Garden

As autumn has come, winter is on the way. When it finally arrives, it can be cold outside. However, even a blanket of snow doesn’t stop a keen gardener.     1    . Read on to find out some main tasks for winter.

Build New Beds

If you live in a more temperate area, you can start making new beds for your vegetable garden now. Raised beds are easy and relatively inexpensive if you have plenty of homemade fertilizers.     2    , you can usually pick it up quite cheap from the city landfill.

Tend to Apples and Pears

Winter is fit to prune(修剪) apple and pear trees. You can remove the damaged and diseased branches when the trees were dormant(休眠).     3    .

    4    

Frost covering can be put over cold hard vegetables before the temperature drops too far to help keep those plants happy in winter. Frost covering can be helpful for Brussels Sprouts, kale, winter cabbage and leeks if you live in milder climates.

Take Hardwood Cuttings(插条)

    5    . Some plants in the garden which do well with hardwood cuttings include elderberry and currants. Roses, buddleia (butterfly bush) and other shrubs also propagate by these types of cuttings.