pampas grass - how to clear my plot of it?

[OverWyreGrower]

Why can't you put it on the compost heap?

We tried with some of ours... you'd need a really, really hot heap and about 3 or 4 years.... the stuff just didn't seem to rot. We stuck a load of it in one of the bins and left it 2 years - the rest of the stuff was great compost, and we had to pick the bits of pampas out of it...

[snohare]

I dug a big one out for my brother and his wife , because she found she was allergic to it and so couldn't remove it herself. So it is as well to find out if you come out in a rash whenever you handle the dry stuff, are exposed to the stems/sap/whatever, before you start digging.
I used a saw and secateurs to cut it to ground level (onto a tarpaulin, then bonfire) then dug out the rest with a mattock. (Don't know if an azada would be heavy enough.) Only took a couple of hours for a three foot diameter, eight foot high plant - but where the prickles got to me, it took weeks for the rash to disappear.

[bearded bloke]

We got one in the front garden (from previous owner & yes I have seen the film) that was killed by the continuous cold last winter,could be a job for the ...... Royal Weeeeeding Day

[TonyF]

Do not burn it, it's what it wants you to do, they regenerate on the pampas in South America after the prarie fires.

The only way to get it out is to dig it out, cut it down to about 9 inches high, if it's mature then almost certainly the middle will have died out and may be full of dead material, rake it all out. Then find a spot on the ring of growth that is driest and start digging it out there, best of luck, if the ground is hard you'll need a pick axe or mattock and a strong back.

And wear long sleeves, the leaves have serrated edges and can cut you. I actually use a petrol driven hedge cutter to take mine down to about 9" every spring and then burn the cuttings but as somebody said, if you burn them, stand back because they burn quickly and can flare up.