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[meri]

Hoping to establish Bana Grass as a ‘chop & drop’ in a new food forest in the Northern Eyre Peninsula area of SA. I would be interested in obtaining a clump, to propagate from divisions.

[Carol]

Hello Meri, welcome to the Nature & Garden forum!  🙂

Could you please specify SA? I have several places in mind with this abbreviation. Thanks.

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“You got to be a gardener to appreciate dirty and muddy hands.”

[dkara]

I think perhaps South Australia is meant. I checked that Bana grass isn’t listed as an invasive plant officially in all of Australia, though other pennisetum grasses are.

Also, bana grass is a hybrid and in this case its seeds are only very rarely “live”. This means that its only way of spreading is through cuttings. It would take plant material falling off of trucks and such along roads for it to spread significantly.

All in all a good idea because it’s highly regarded for animal food! Since it grows fast, it would probably also be a good choice to build up soil in plots you only intend to work on in a few years. Food forest seems like a great project, how are you coming along with that?

I honestly wouldn’t know where to source a few cuttings in Australia.

[beezybee]

The way it spreads sounds like it couldn’t be an invasive plant, since typically that’s characterized by an uncontrollable spread. However, it is still nonnative, so there is still caution to take!
Have you considered other native alternatives, such as pennstripe, tassel cord rush, tasred, or fountain grass?

[meri]

Hi Carol,

I’m in South Australia. More specifically, halfway between Perth (on the West coast) and Sydney (on the East coast).

[meri]

Hi Beezybee, Bana Grass is native to Queensland, Australia, so not native to my local area. I’m planning native and non-native trees, shrubs and groundcovers in the food forest.

[Author]

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