A couple people wanted to know how old this plant is. Believe it or not it is only 7 or 8 years old. It is located at the end of their septic drainage field. Nina: The foliage dies back each year. You cut off the large leaves leaving the stems attached. You then use some of these large leaves turned upside down to protect the plant during the winter. Our friends need to use a chainsaw to cut their gunnera back. The leaves grow anew each spring from the base which sort of looks like a hump. Pudge: I have seen some leaves used as castings for a multi-level fountain. Pretty cool. Barrie: No I have not seen the G. chilensi you speak of. Sounds like a cool photo opportunity. Even better if one could get a shot of the cone which is quite different from the cone of G. mantica. Cheers, MG

If you are within 15-20 miles of me I would be happy to come over and take a look. Only payment necessary would be a cold bottle of beer. :) You have aroused my curiosity. Check out if there are any garden clubs or master gardeners in your area and get hold of them. Or check with your local mom & pop garden nursery - maybe the owner would be willing to stop by in return for reimbursement for fuel and time. You would be helping to support a local small business owner, which is always a good thing. If you post your whereabouts here, just post some nearest towns or something, do not get specific. Specifics can be done via private correspondence. Good luck, -Tom

Well, it's not sedge, for which you should be glad,but it still looks annoying. I recommend that you take your beautifully clear pictures, including the last one, over to the Name That Plant forum here on GW and let the wizards of botany over there tell you what you've got and how to get rid of it. Or, if you've got kids, get them to pull up each and every plant, and pay them per bag full. Don't tell them who gave you the idea, though.

Are we all closet Virgo's in here? LOL I did the same thing. Maybe it was sentimental...one more clean up before demo. It was actually kind of sad to see it go...10 years of our history in the house and kitchen gone in a weekend of demolition. My demo guys had a great idea...demo everything first, then remove the carpet/flooring. Especially the carpet. We took the whole house down to the bare wall studs, even removed most of the old 1978 insulation. The carpet collected most of the dust and dirt, and then it was easy to just pull up and roll away the old wall to wall and with it went most of the fine debris. It was much easier to then follow up with the shop vac and vacuum the whole empty and bare house. And the day I could finally do that after 2 weekends of demolition was one of the most satisfying of the whole renovation. I knew it was going to get all dirty again when they started construction, but it just felt great to clear out everything and vacuum up all that dust and dirt. I'll admit it, I'm a Virgo :)