Help- large plant taking over garden

[mustnottouchmyface2020]

Hi everyone, any idea what this is and how I can tame it? It’s popped up in lots of places in my garden and have spent a good 2 hours chopping a smaller clump of it back. Thank you.

It looks like a type of ornamental grass, I have many of them, they pop up really Easily, fortunately I’ve some space to fill but you can dig them up quite easily if they are a problem.

I don’t know what it is but it is a nightmare because it drops seeds which pop up as new little plants everywhere. I managed to get rid of ours by cutting it back a lot and then digging it out. Am still having to dig up it’s seedlings 2 years later.

Yup, they self seed so easily and grow big quickly.

It’s carex pendula/pendulous sedge. I decided to look it up for my own interest and am pleased to learn that the RHS mention it seeds easily as one of their key points!

www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?PID=992
www.rhs.org.uk/plants/details%3Fplantid%3D329

Yes it’s sedge. We had a lot of this in our gardens and I ended up paying some gardeners to dig it all out at the root. It really does spread. Unfortunately it also self seeds so even now I am pulling out new shoots all over the place.

Aaargh I have this in my new garden. Pendulous sedge. Previous owners planted one in the centre of each of four buddleias, and they've grown into monsters. I have the double whammy of 8foot buddleia bushes with their roots all tangled up with the sodding sedge grasses. I'm waiting to hear back on a price to get a professional to remove the lot, he's warned me they are so big it may be a rent-a-digger job so nice and expensive . Why would anyone plant these things?!?

You shouldn’t need a professional and definitely not a digger to remove these.

The buddleias cut the branches down to the ground, if you don’t want to keep them after this, just dig them out, but cutting down is easy, they do grow back fast though. So cut down then remove root ball.

The sedge grasses just use a fork, fork all the way round it, and then lift it out. You can cut it down first, I have even used a bush cutter on one of mine. You certainly don’t need a digger to remove them though and I’d be concerned about anyone who told you you did.

I have about a dozen to eighteen of these sedge grasses, most self seeded, but I’ve a large garden, we recently moved several of them to bare bits in borders and put a couple in large pots. I physically couldn’t move them, but my husband did it relatively easily. He just forked round and lifted. They weigh a lot when you get them out, but look good in big pots.

It’s certainly not a digger job. I’d look for a second opinion. Someone is ripping you off,

Interesting... Thank you for that!

I’m not sure about a digger but you definitely need to be strong to remove them once they are established as they are tough as old boots to pull and dig out! Good luck!! I would never want to grow them again as they are so invasive.

Why would anyone plant these things? Maybe nobody has. They are a native plant.

@ArtichokeAardvark
I agree with PP who said you shouldn’t need a digger to remove them. I’ve removed similar sized buddleias myself. One was tricky as it was near a wall so I couldn’t get the roots out but I just cut it to the ground and put weedkiller on the stump. The stump rotted within a year or 2 and was then easy to remove.

You could try a systemic weedkiller. Glyphosate is on its way out and not to be recommended, but grasses, and apparently sedges too, are supremely susceptible to it. Other systemic weedkillers exist.