This is one of my favourite overview videos of Vetiver Grass, Chrysopogon zizanioides; a sterile plant with a myriad of uses that grows in areas with humid/wet Summers (or a water phytoremediation plant in hot, dry areas). Mainly used as erosion control on heavily degraded lands in full sun as a pioneer to native revegetation.
This video used to be hosted on Vimeo but has been reuploaded to YouTube, hence the lack of views.
If you have any questions on how Vetiver works, ask away. Happy to answer all of them.
Attention Gardeners. Vetiver Grass can be invasive depending on your location.
Prefer native species if you live outside of its natural habitat (eg India, Indonesia, …), or make sure you buy a non-fertile/sterile Vetiver variety.
(Edit: add link for sterile variety, rephrase to sound less frightening)
The most commonly used commercial genotypes of vetiver are sterile, and because vetiver propagates itself by small offsets instead of underground stolons, these genotypes are noninvasive and can easily be controlled by cultivation of the soil at the boundary of the hedge. However, care must be taken, because fertile genotypes of vetiver have become invasive.[10]
[10] “‘SUNSHINE’ VETIVERGRASS Chrysopogon zizanioides (L.) Roberty” (PDF). National Resource Conservation Service. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 25, 2017. Retrieved March 3, 2018.
Extract of Chrysopogon zizanioides on Wikipedia.
Common being the operative word. You have to order in seeds for it to be fertile, no certified nurseryperson would recommend or be selling seeds. One would have to actively do no research and make several critical mistakes, maybe even illegal mistakes, for Vetiver to become invasive.
As I said, ask any questions. Vetiver, as it is known in the bioengineering sense, is sterile. Vetiver, as the wild plant of India, has fertile genotypes. They aren’t really related even though they are a similar plant.
Fear, uncertainty, doubt. Unnecessary in this case. Nativists are always the same.
Vetiver is great to plant in areas where it’s native. It’s probably fine elsewhere as long as it’s non-fertile. Thanks for highlighting the Sunshine Vetiver variety btw.
My intention is to add this caveat to avoid mistakes, not frighten people. Planting/importing invasive species became illegal because people made mistakes. And it still happen from time to time. Customs may not catch every plants that’s ordered online and come from overseas.
Also I want to encourage people to plant a variety of native plants. A single species may not grow well everywhere. Ask your local nursery about native, deep rooted plants. In the US there’s the NWF Native Plant Finder.
I strongly disagree. There is no plant for the humid sub/tropics that physiologically is better than ‘Sunshine’ or ‘Monto’. One can’t be concerned with climate change, wholesale land degradation, and extreme weather events and then think that local plants are adapted or adapting to all of these conditions. Literal climate zones in the US have changed in our lifetime.
I’m going to sound like a twat here but I have over 20 years horticultural experience, am currently working in the invasive plant industry now specialising in the worst of the worst invasive plants in our area, formerly working on large scale landslip remediation and regeneration, run a native plant nursery specialising in native erosion plants in my spare time, run a charity for Vetiver Grass uptake, do regeneration in my own time (just completed a 3000 plant riparian project all grown from seed), etc etc. I have a lot of experience in this field, like a stupid amount. I feel 100% confident that your concerns are unfounded. And that doesn’t consider the nonprofit that runs the research and dissemination of Vetiver in over 100 countries for the last 40 years. What you have commented hasn’t cracked the case and I doubt it won’t cause them to close up.
I won’t be able to argue with Wikipedia as an unrelated source (unrelated in that what you are quoting is completely unrelated with the video) or change your mind unfortunately. I just hope that readers understand that Vetiver is a tool, a tool that helps native plants grow in the long-term, its not stealing space from them. The world is changing and changing rapidly, we need to adapt with it. If the doubt in your post prevents one person from using Vetiver when it could have had a measurable impact and improve ecological outcomes faster than a few native plants, then that’s a tragedy.
Not sure we disagree that much, I mentioned earlier Vertiver sounds great in area where it’s native (ie tropical countries). A humid subtropical climate can be found in many places and I trust that it grows well there.
However most countries do not have such climate. I assumed, possibly wrongly, Vetiver wouldn’t grow as well elsewhere given the wide range or temperature and humidity found in different places.
I may be over-cautious with non-native species, in Europe we’re plagued with a few ones like insasive hornets attacking bees, silurus in waterways, box tree moth attacking my family’s garden, …
To better understand, are you saying Vetiver would be a good fit in most climates (except deserts), let say Mediterranean and Subtropical highlands? Or where you speaking in the context of tropical areas only?
Edit: It appears I was underestimating Vetiver. According to Paul Truong it grow even in mediteranean climate, and while it doesn’t like cold they can survive a bit of cold weather.
It grows where it grows. It’s not native to the tropics, it and its related species grow endemically in a couple of countries. One cultivar has spread from there as a “tool” for bioengineering purposes, water treatment etc., because of how unique it is.
It grows in Florida, Texas, California and others. It grows on tropical islands. It grows throughout the tropics and subtropics of Australia. It grows in New Zealand. Africa. Asia. I’m trying to find correspondence from a University Professor in the States that grew it for phytoremediation and then brought it all in before it froze, for some reason i think Minnesota but I can’t find any hits. It is in Spain, Italy, the warmer locales - https://vetiverspain.com/
I may be over-cautious with non-native species, in Europe we’re plagued with a few ones like insasive hornets attacking bees, silurus in waterways, box tree moth attacking my family’s garden
That’s fine when you are bringing in plants of an unknown nature. There are figuratively massive bodies of work regarding Vetiver Grass, peer reviewed, that should allay your fears. 40 years of modern study, hedges that are 100 years old on an island as a real world example. How you feel about random plants and animals doesn’t relate to Vetiver. You have to believe in the science, not the vibe of it. I’d say Australia is far more delicate than Europe; we are leading the way in extinctions, land clearing, and have some of the strictest plant and animal quarantine controls in the world. Vetiver is openly grown here with no issues.
I’m writing this for other readers as well, you don’t really think of Vetiver as a plant in a garden. It’s a tool in your toolbox for specific reasons, like a drain or a swale or silt control or a septic tank or retaining walls. A garden should have native and noninvasive exotic food producing plants, Vetiver sits outside of gardening as a technique. If a native plant can do the job required, use it but don’t discount a sterile bioengineering tool when there is real work to be done that native/endemic plants can’t do well. It’s self-defeating.
