Hey!
Yesterday I found a nice board at my home store - some Kiri-Wood!
Now Kiri isn't well known:
Kiri is an Asian wood. In Japan is a tradition, where you plant a kiri tree when you get a baby-girl. The tree grows quite fast (about 2yd. per year). So when the girl is grown up, the tree is also big enough to cut it and make a kimono cabinet for it.
What counts more for us, Kiri is a really light, soft wood. comes in great quality, hardly any marks. The color is lighter than poplar, the grain is light and hardly even notable. Nice to cut, doesn't hardly even dust. Due to the soft structure you can't cut fine things from it.
Kiri wood is weather resistant and it's a great wood for outside stuff.
Now where to get some?Kiri got a new fashioned name "Paulowina", which is related to the latin name of the tree family. Don't ask me why. Kiri is the original, well known name for this wood.
For the Germans/Europeans here: You can get Kiri at the OBI home store. comes quite cheap, great quailty.
For the US: Check here
paulowniatrees.org for a retailer.
so now to the bragging thing. I have cut big 20cm / 8" ornaments from it. Was planned to be a test and came out really great. I will use this wood for some of my summer projects. I can imagine a lot of nice things for the garden....
click on images for big view
