How do you remove pampas grass?

Answer 1

I have been working on removing a pampas plant next to my daughters home in North Carolina for about ten days. I must say that being from Washington state has been a problem and limited my work to about 4 hrs a day, when the heat was not yet at it's peak. It started out as a 8ft tall plant with a base of 6ft diameter. The plant had a dead space in the middle just the right size for their old yellow dog to lay in.

I trimmed it to the ground with a hedge trimmer and put it on a burn pile at the back of the property. I then dug up the plant roots to a 4ft depth and sifted out the roots with an old screen door and put the roots on top of the burn pile. There were still more roots below the 4ft level;but, we are hoping that getting the original plant ball wrapped in plastic and covering the roots with 4 ft of soil will kill the remaining roots?

Now I just noticed that there are hundreds of little plants outside of the 6ft diameter are growing, but they are getting regularly mowed (weekly) so they will not grow up, above the ground at least. I pulled a few of them and found that their root system is quite extensive. Judging from the looks of the grass, this area is another 6 to eight ft of pampas grass plantlings all the way around the original plant, except on the side where the house is. I pulled most of the roots growing into the foundation so I hope that the area right against the house is clear.