# Elephant grass - is it only my family that believes this?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elephant-grass-is-it-only-my-family-that-believes-this/615338
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [March 9, 2012, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elephant-grass-is-it-only-my-family-that-believes-this/615338 "2012-03-09T22:12:14Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)
#### Post date: [March 9, 2012, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elephant-grass-is-it-only-my-family-that-believes-this/615338/1 "2012-03-09T22:12:14Z")
As I was growing up, my parents made occasional reference to the stupidity of planting [elephant grass.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccharum_ravennae) They were completely convinced that once it “became established” it could never be completely removed.
They also thought that the fact that it had razor-edged leaves and dropped lots of puffy floating seeds at least once a year also made it unsuitable for landscaping near sane people. But its unstoppable invasiveness, which to hear them talk was nearly supernatural, was what made it taboo.
I was always a bit skeptical and there’s a small story to my experiment proving that, no, it’s not impossible to remove. But I’m still curious. Do other people believe that elephant grass is impossible to remove, or was that just something that my parents happened to have exaggerated?
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### Author:  [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)
#### Post date: [March 9, 2012, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elephant-grass-is-it-only-my-family-that-believes-this/615338/2 "2012-03-09T22:34:28Z")
Never heard of the stuff before, but shit, dude, _your own link_ says it “is now established as an invasive species in several parts of North America” and then links to the [California Invasive Plant Counci](http://www.cal-ipc.org/ip/management/plant_profiles/Saccharum_ravennae.php)l. “Impossible to remove” in plant terms really means “more work/effort/money/time than I have or am willing to invest” i.e. you’re not going to soak it in gasoline and set your yard on fire and then salt the earth afterwards.
Protip: any plant that spreads via underground rhizomes is going to be harder to remove once established.
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### Author:  [@The\_Vorlon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Vorlon)
#### Post date: [March 9, 2012, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elephant-grass-is-it-only-my-family-that-believes-this/615338/3 "2012-03-09T22:34:43Z")
You realize that they frown on home use of thermonuclear devices, don’t you?
That shit spreads by roots, blows through asphalt like butter and laughs at fire. The only way to stop it is to scrape off two feet of topsoil and shoot it into the sun.
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### Author:  [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)
#### Post date: [March 9, 2012, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elephant-grass-is-it-only-my-family-that-believes-this/615338/4 "2012-03-09T22:45:54Z")
> [@The\_Vorlon](#):
>
> You realize that they frown on home use of thermonuclear devices, don’t you?
> That shit spreads by roots, blows through asphalt like butter and laughs at fire. The only way to stop it is to scrape off two feet of topsoil and shoot it into the sun.
Yep - this is the same reason that planting bamboo in your yard to fill in that back corner that doesn’t get much sun is a really bad idea.
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### Author:  [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)
#### Post date: [March 9, 2012, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elephant-grass-is-it-only-my-family-that-believes-this/615338/5 "2012-03-09T22:48:08Z")
Wait? Bamboo is bad? But they just go straight up!
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### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [March 9, 2012, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elephant-grass-is-it-only-my-family-that-believes-this/615338/6 "2012-03-09T22:53:11Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#):
>
> Wait? Bamboo is bad? But they just go straight up!
Some species spread quite rapidly by horizontal rhizomes or stolons or similar.
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### Author:  [@Lacunae\_Matata](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lacunae_Matata)
#### Post date: [March 9, 2012, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elephant-grass-is-it-only-my-family-that-believes-this/615338/7 "2012-03-09T23:15:20Z")
Ditto nandina, especially in my part of the country. I cursed the folks who planted it at my old house: I could cut it down to a stump and have pretty shrubs two weeks later, and trees up to the eaves within a couple of months. Roundup plus salt never did eradicate the ones growing under the deck. Same house had a wisteria vine in the front yard. Same treatment wouldn’t kill it. I swear you could hear it grow!
On the bright side, there are now two plants that I know even I can’t kill! (Okay, four. Bamboo and kudzu are part of that group, but I’m smart enough not to plant those.)
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### Author:  [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2012, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elephant-grass-is-it-only-my-family-that-believes-this/615338/8 "2012-03-10T11:59:15Z")
> [@The\_Vorlon](#):
>
> You realize that they frown on home use of thermonuclear devices, don’t you?
> That shit spreads by roots, blows through asphalt like butter and laughs at fire. The only way to stop it is to scrape off two feet of topsoil and shoot it into the sun.
Huh. When I went to remove the long established row alongside my driveway, all it took was pruning it back in sections and hitting the trimmed area with roundup each time I did. Along with digging up the runners, which were more than an inch thick and really hard to miss. Hard to remove too. I had to take a saw to some of them.
My patch had overgrown enough that removing it was quite a project. Not impossible, just a big, dirty project. But I imagine that having it established in the wild is a completely different thing. This patch was contained between my driveway and the neighbors’ driveway.
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### Author:  [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2012, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elephant-grass-is-it-only-my-family-that-believes-this/615338/9 "2012-03-10T12:26:42Z")
I’ve been trying to grow Pampas/Elephant Grass for years now-it doesn’t survive the winters here (Boston, MA). I even took it inside for the winter-it never established itself.
My Ravenna Grass has been more successful-but it doesn’t look as nice as Pampas grass.
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### Author:  [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2012, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elephant-grass-is-it-only-my-family-that-believes-this/615338/10 "2012-03-10T12:47:38Z")
> [@Yllaria](#):
>
> As I was growing up, my parents made occasional reference to the stupidity of planting [elephant grass.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccharum_ravennae) They were completely convinced that once it “became established” it could never be completely removed.
That’s not the problem. It’s later on after it is established and full of bloody elephants.
Then you’ll need a mouse.
To get rid of it you’ll probably need a cat.
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2012, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elephant-grass-is-it-only-my-family-that-believes-this/615338/11 "2012-03-10T16:24:10Z")
I lived in San Diego from age four to 15. We had a large elephant grass plant in our back yard, and three stands of bamboo (one of which had skinny stalks, and the other two with 4" diameter stalks). In the time I was there, none of the plants spread from where they were.
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### Author:  [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2012, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elephant-grass-is-it-only-my-family-that-believes-this/615338/12 "2012-03-10T16:57:49Z")
To be fair I should have qualified my statement about bamboo. There are many varieties and some are relatively stable while others spread like wildfire. I suppose a careful selcetion could make it easier to control but I’m not about to try it.
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### Author:  [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2012, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elephant-grass-is-it-only-my-family-that-believes-this/615338/13 "2012-03-10T17:17:01Z")
My mother is _still_ trying to kill the mint I planted as a kid - 40 years ago!
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### Author:  [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2012, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elephant-grass-is-it-only-my-family-that-believes-this/615338/14 "2012-03-10T17:21:24Z")
Mint. Ha! Elephant grass who cares?
Try removing blackberries.
Woody, spreads underground, resistant to chemicals, and sharp fucking thorns to boot.
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2012, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elephant-grass-is-it-only-my-family-that-believes-this/615338/15 "2012-03-10T17:27:17Z")
> [@Rick](#):
>
> Try removing blackberries.
> Woody, spreads underground, resistant to chemicals, and sharp fucking thorns to boot.
Blackberries. Kudzu of the North.
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### Author:  [@aesop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aesop)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2012, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elephant-grass-is-it-only-my-family-that-believes-this/615338/16 "2012-03-10T17:39:17Z")
> [@zoid](#):
>
> Yep - this is the same reason that planting bamboo in your yard to fill in that back corner that doesn’t get much sun is a really bad idea.
I rented a small backhoe to dig up the bamboo in our backyard. Blew a hydraulic line on the thing halfway through the job, trying to dig up the hundredth eighty-pound root ball two feet across. And that bamboo had started out as a single stalk planted by the neighbor two doors down about twenty years earlier.
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### Author:  [@The\_Vorlon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Vorlon)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2012, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elephant-grass-is-it-only-my-family-that-believes-this/615338/17 "2012-03-10T18:09:41Z")
> [@ralph124c](#):
>
> I’ve been trying to grow Pampas/Elephant Grass for years now-it doesn’t survive the winters here (Boston, MA). I even took it inside for the winter-it never established itself.
> My Ravenna Grass has been more successful-but it doesn’t look as nice as Pampas grass.
_ **phragmites communis** _does quite well in the Boston area, there is a huge patch of it in Quincy. Visible for miles when the local lowlifes set it ablaze.
[originally seeded in a area where river dredging were dumped to combat blowing clay muck, now a prime example of law of unintended consequences}
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### Author:  [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2012, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elephant-grass-is-it-only-my-family-that-believes-this/615338/18 "2012-03-10T20:01:42Z")
> [@aesop](#):
>
> I rented a small backhoe to dig up the bamboo in our backyard. Blew a hydraulic line on the thing halfway through the job, trying to dig up the hundredth eighty-pound root ball two feet across. And that bamboo had started out as a single stalk planted by the neighbor two doors down about twenty years earlier.
Ah, neighbors. I got to see Dad develop a hatred of sumac when we bought a house where the back yard neighbor had planted a sumac tree\*. They also colonize via rhizomes and the elderly man Dad bought from had not been able to keep up with it for many years.
This was about 1970, so Roundup ™ wouldn’t be available for ten years. I think he paid us a quarter to saw up suckers over an inch in diameter and fifty cents for ones over two inches. In 1970, my sisters and I found that very motivating. . . while there were still large ones left.
\*I’ve heard that there are other trees that can be mistaken for sumac. I don’t know if it was ture sumac or not. I just know it made its own little jungle.
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### Author:  [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2012, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elephant-grass-is-it-only-my-family-that-believes-this/615338/19 "2012-03-11T16:53:51Z")
> [@beowulff](#):
>
> My mother is _still_ trying to kill the mint I planted as a kid - 40 years ago!
Has she tried eating it?
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### Author:  [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2012, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elephant-grass-is-it-only-my-family-that-believes-this/615338/20 "2012-03-11T18:36:37Z")
I’m so glad I live in an area where I don’t have to worry about giant invading plants so much.
> [@don\_t\_ask](#):
>
> That’s not the problem. It’s later on after it is established and full of bloody elephants.
>
> Then you’ll need a mouse.
>
> To get rid of it you’ll probably need a cat.
Then you need a dog to get rid of the cat.
And a bear to get rid of the dog.
And an elephant to get rid of the bear…
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