Vetiver - A wonder plant for sloping gardens

VETIVER - A wonder plant for sloping gardens

After 28 years of gardening in Spain I have come across a really useful plant for stabilising, preventing corosion and terracing sloping banks or entire gardens. It's name is Vetiver, 

Chrysopogon Zizanioidea variety Monto, and it originates from India. When visiting Andalucia recently to give a talk to the Axarquia Gardening Club I saw many gardens with lines of an attractive green grasslike plant holding 30 to 60 degree slopes together and enabling terraces for planting fruit trees and flowering gardens without the expense of cemented walling. I found that the plants had been provided by Anne and David Olson who live in the area and have supplied plants to most european countries. The basic information is that the plants are drought resistant after the first three to six months of watering, are sterile so one does not get unwanted self seedings and the roots of a 1.5 metre mature plant can go down 3 metres, hence the amazing anti corrosion properties. Have an interesting look at the plants and their uses in a wide range of situations by searching www.vetiverspain.com.

Anne and David can also be contacted via info@vetiverspain.com.

I and friends have already used, or are about to be use, plants for stabilising a bank alongside a horse paddock - the cut dried plant said to be  also a useful feed -, a background to a watergarden, in a tall planter as an effective feature on a terrace, as an internal windbreak and as a barrier between unfenced plots in an agricultural area.

I hope that the plant helps other Mediteranean gardeners solve erosion problems.