On 11/10/2010 17:16, David in Normandy wrote:
On 11/10/2010 17:35, Gordon H wrote:


The last thing I burned in my garden was a pampas grass plant which was
getting large enough to overpower me....

That stump crumbled away to a nice loamy mulch the following year.

So did the fire kill the pampas grass? I thought some people burned the
dead foliage off anyway on those to just clean them up rather than kill
them?

I suspect it might depend on how big a clump, but they are supposed to
withstand it as a flash burn in the wild. I'd be inclined to wet the
ground underneath before torching one. OTOH it may be that the dry
material is a better insulator so that could be counter productive.

I've got a couple of large clumps of it myself and was pondering if a
match sometime over Winter might clean them up. The dead stems are a
pain to trim by hand and they are very sharp on bare skin.

Like pruning hacksaw blades. Pyracantha is even worse to prune.

Regards,
Martin Brown