What is this plant & how can I get rid of it?

tombrown

There are about 10 of these in the garden of a house I recently bought in Donegal. They can be quite nice (especially with those tall flowers that come very occasionally), and act as a good windbreak, but I only want to keep 1 or 2 of them. They have grown very big (> 10ft tall) and are taking over the lawn and other shrubs (swamping the wonderful blue hydrangea we have). It is nearly impossible to cut them back –they tangle a lawnmower or strimmer, the leaves bounce off a hedge trimmer. I haven’t yet tried a chain saw… but might yet.

Is there an easy way to get rid of them? Maybe just something to cause them to die off & rot back rather than try & cut them down or dig them out?

celticbhoy27

Looks like a yucca plant. To get rid of it, I'd imagine, youl have to cut it back considerably before brushing a herbicide on the remaining leaves

Skrynesaver

Phormium (New Zealand flax), very successful in coastal areas, they're fairly shallow rooted so digging them up isn't as difficult as it sounds and they don't sprout from their roots, just the crown

looksee

Yes, flax

celticbhoy27

looksee wrote: »

Yes, flax

You sure? Flax don't flower do they?
Edit: simple google search says they do

lottpaul

Definitely phormium tenax. Grows like a weed along the west coast and is an excellent windbreak. It's likely that the previous owner had a good reason for planting them so it's a good idea to keep some. I use a "graffán"/mattock to get them out and it's easy enough.
The stumps and roots will take easily so don't dump them over the hedge or you'll be surrounded by phormiums in a few years.

tombrown

Thanks all for the advice - I will invest in a mattock and get to work.

I googled "graffán" and the top hit was a post on boards.ie in January 2011 about removing gorse ... by lottpaul

AnthonyB

mad...looks like a giant crocosmia...are they in the same family anyone know?

pwurple

AnthonyB wrote: »

mad...looks like a giant crocosmia...are they in the same family anyone know?

Not same family... Crocosmia is in iris family, phormiums in hemerocallis family. Also from different parts of the world. New zealand and south africa.

They don't look much alike in the flesh. Phormium has much tougher leaves, and shiny, and far bigger.

tombrown

Shamelessly bumping thread to give an update & ask a question.

Firstly thanks to all who id'd the plant & advised on how to get rid of them. I finally got round to starting on this during the Easter holiday and have taken five of them out - two completely and three down to the crown. I jammed (& possibly ruined) my chainsaw to cut them down before finding out a simple bow saw was just as easy & effective as the chainsaw. I took out the two crowns with a mattock, as suggested, but am leaving the other three til later in the year as I need a few days holiday on my holiday

I now have a massive pile of flax leaves in a corner of the garden; hopefully the volume will diminish as they rot down.

Now my question - as I cut the stems down quite low, some of them had sucker type roots on them - will these ones take & re-grow? Its not the end of the world if they do as its out of the way where I dumped them, but I'd prefer it if they didn't

I have a special corner reserved for the actual crowns as I remove them as I am pretty sue they will take,