Pampas grass

[ajm]

I believe it is now illegal in France. What do you do with an existing clump of it in the garden?

[tagh]

Cut it down to ground level, let it regrow a couple of inches then poison the hell out of it; then cover it with thick, very black plastic. Repeat the poison and recover with the plastic. It takes time but it works and saves the digging.

[demi]

Legend has it that pampas grass in a garden is a sign of key-swapping swingers!!!

But I agree with tagh about the way to get rid of it.

[ajm]

Thanks for that. I know how to get rid of it but what I wanted to know is do I have to?

[Blaze]

@ajm It is now illegal to sell pampas grass and I think it is on the government list of plants considered invasive like Japanese knotweed, ambroisie, giant hogweed etc. The reason given is that it is bad for bio-diversity - ie spreads to quickly and easily, suffocates other plants. We had one at our old place, it was no trouble, we cut it back every year having cut the flower spikes for decoration and it never spread anywhere else.

I have found nothing official about having to get rid of an existing plant on your property. There's a lot of "you must destroy it" from all sorts of journalists, website etc. but nothing on a government website. Whether your Mairie can insist on its destruction, I don't know, but you could ask them. Failing that, try contacting the Prefecture or one of the sous-prefectures.

[RobertArthur]

The first national order banning pampas grass was issued on 14 February 2018. Since then, the ban has been strengthened on several occasions, including in March 2020 and more recently in April 2024. Today, the ban covers not only the sale of this plant, but also its possession, transport and even exchange.

TVINFO.

[Blaze]

@RobertArthur I had already seen the info about the arrêté mentioned in your link.
I didn't know whether this was national, or whether it had been passed in law (via parliament) and whether it is enforceable on private land.

I appreciate that invasive plants have to be controlled but unfortunately in many cases, it has come too late and some of these plants have become a real problem.

[Quiksilver]

What a shame. They're havens for wildlife as I found out when I dug out a huge clump in a UK garden. Lost count of the mice and shrews that were living in or under it. I wouldn't have thought that they were invasive, just potentially very big plants. If anything should be banned, it's bamboo!

[Bayleaf]

A shame indeed, and absolutely a valuable habitat to many. We used to sell various varieties of Cortaderia at the Pépinière years ago. It seems you can still buy them online, so that's odd!

There's one in a garden I manage. It has never misbehaved, caused a problem, or expanded to beyond it's corner at the bottom of the garden. The only maintenance it needs is to keep the blasted brambles from devouring it! I'm certainly not about to dig it up or pour copious amounts of poison on it, and thus into the ground.

I have a never-ending problem with creeping brambles and bracken that slowly wants to envelope our land. Nothing else wants to grow where there's bracken, but it's an absolute haven for wildlife to live - including hiding from the hunt at this time of year. All I can do is keep cutting back the worst areas (sometimes manually - sigh!), and learn to live with it.

[Blaze]

@Bayleaf Bracken is one of the oldest carboniferous plants and is very difficult, almost impossible to get rid of without constant work ! You must have seen it in Devon : Fields adjoining the moor had to be managed constantly as, if left to it's own devices, the bracken would take over. The problem with bracken is there is little you can do with it. It doesn't make good fodder, some say it's carcinogenic and although I've seen it baled up it makes lousy bedding for animals (I'd never have used it in the horses' shelters).

I agree it's a shame about pampas grass - I had never heard of it being a nuisance until we went to see Scooby at the far end of Finistère, where it was growing all over the place. But it was far less invasive than the brambles (but brambles are wonderful for wildlife ...) and the only places I've seen it growing wild is on wasteland in urban areas.