What to do with pampas grass?

Larumbelle

I have had to cut down enormous amounts of bramble and pampas in the attempt of taming my garden. I know that the bramble has to go - either be burnt or stuck in the brown wheelie bin - but what about pampas grass? Ideally I'd like to shred it into that mulch stuff that stops the weeds coming up, or compost it down (there's an awful lot of it, though.) Can I do that?

Also, check this out: http://www.flickr.com/photos/26489708@N07/2489016577/ After hacking back a good few feet of bramble and pampas this aternoon I found out we have a secret garden! It's such a big area that for a little while I thought the fence was missing between us and the neighbours, but it seems that instead we have our own little woodland glade!

Nothing in my garden surprises me any more. I've stopped making plans, something keeps coming along and making me change them!

Kay_Peel

I've got the t-shirt for this one, SilverC! I moved into a house with three of the blighters. They are invasive and tend to crowd out other plants. You can do two things:

Contain it. (I planted one in a strong shopping bag, surrounded by bricks and then sunk it into the ground - it hasn't escaped yet.)

Get rid of it.

Cut the plant right down to the ground. Watch your hands - the leaves cut and are ferocious, so use gloves. Shred it and your idea about using it as a mulch is an excellent one.


Measure it for width.
If it's three feet across then the roots are three feet down. If it's four feet across then the roots are four feet down and so on.....
Dig a trench around it and expose the roots.

If it's safe to do so, set fire to the crown and burn the beggar.

Wait until we have some really wet weather.

Then, get something like a pick or a shovel or an axe and chip away at the roots, piece by piece. I did it for about 10 minutes at a time, for half an hour each evening, and it took me a week. Back-breaking or what!

One of my Pampas Grasses was sited next to a heating-oil tank, so I couldn't burn it. I drenched it in weedkiller and then covered it with an old carpet. I kept going back to it and giving it more poison, then covering it, before hacking it out with a pick.

My neighbour had a better idea for his Pampas grass. He was having an extension built and when the chap with a digger arrived to do the foundations, he asked him to shovel the PG out. And away it went!

Why didn't I think of that!

Good luck

Norma_Desmond

Napalm? Seriously, I hate the stuff; there's a giant clump of it in the terraced garden above my house and every time there's a storm the fronds break off, sail down and stick to my kitchen window.
Gave me a real fright the first time it happened!

Larumbelle

Thanks guys. There are three or four established plants, but maybe ten or twenty 'babies' that I presume have seeded from the previous owner's neglect. I have dug a few out already; even the small ones took me hours to do.

I don't really like them so I hope to get rid of all of them. Burning won't be an option until the rest of the garden is cleared, and I'd need to dismantle the fence for a digger. I don't want to use glyphosate because of the monsanto boycott and anyway, I'd rather be eco. So it looks like lots of back-breaking for me! Oh well, it'll be worth it, and at least I can get some mulch out of it!

By the way, have you ever heard that pampas is supposed to be a sign that swingers live in a house? That's what my 80-year-old next door neighbour told me. I am now disturbed as 1) how does she know about secret swingers codes and 2) does she now think I'm a prude?

MoJo

I love my pampas, but I'm no swinger :rotfl:

Mine's huge now. My dad used to burn it off every year but it's way too big and too near a building for that now (it was neglected for a few years). Last year I gave it a severe haircut and it recovered nicely.

I love to see the huge pampas swaying, and the birdies love it for nesting. I cut and dry some every year, keep it in the house for decoration over winter, and when the birds have decimated what's left on the plant for their nests, I bring out my dried fronds to give them more nesting material

jiblets1

Be careful when you do take down the pampas, as when I took down my father's there was a wasps nest living in it (apparently quite common because they use the papery bits in the middle to eat up into the nest). Suffice to say, the wasps weren't very happy and really went for me. My father ended up putting a bit of lighter fluid on it and setting it alight. And it REALLY went up high. I would not recommend it if there's anything near that could go up with it...

tru

We have a HUGE pampas in the front garden, I love it. We've just dug up the one in the back garden, it was massive. We did a bit of guerrilla gardening, split it into three and planted them across the road