A friend of mine raves about the versatility of vetiver grass . She has it uprise here and there around her farm .
I am unfamiliar with the specie , but as I ’ve search , it appears quite useful indeed . Here ’s a good articleover at Permaculture News :
Vetiver ( Vetiveria zizanoides ) is a densely tufted , perennial clump grass with cockeyed foliage bases which overlap .
It forms narrow-minded , heavy hedges when planted along the contours of sloping land , slow down streamlet - off and facilitate the water supply soak into the soil rather than washing off the slope . The fuddled foliage also blocks the transition of soil and debris which step by step build up a soil bench .
The key is to plant the grass as a hedge along the contour , sooner set out with the aid of a mere “ A ” bod , with a space of 10cms between the grass slips . Vetiver grows to a top of around one metre but should be issue back to a planting tallness of 150 mm . The thatch can then be placed behind the fresh planted strip to supply an instant filter to control run - off . We did this with amazing resultant role on an urban - fringe forestry programme to hold erosion on bleak , decomposed granite soil on the mound above Hong Kong . The night after planting saw a very heavy tropical rainstorm . We went next morning and found that two inches of soil had been hold back behind the entire forage hedge .
Vetiver is a lively system , rather than engineered ( bulldozers , graders , bunds , contour drains ) , which grows with the deposition of deposit . In Fiji , vetiver hedges which have been in position on 20 percent gradient for thirty years have built up terraces two metres high . observational plots in Colombia showed significant grime loss reducing using vetiver hedge , where in one year , soil red were reduce to 1.4 tons per hectare compared to 143 short ton per hectare for a bare fallow control .
Best results arise from a two metre upright interval between hedges , but this depend on the stage of slope and the friability of the grime . On our crumbly grunge in Hong Kong a double staggered words had the skilful impression . The edge of uncertain roads and drain ditches can also be protected by vetiver .
Because of their basal density , vetiver hedges are far more effective in control erosion than lemongrass or hedging of Tree or bush such as Leucanea .
It ’s also used for perfume , animal forage and medicine .
There isa net ton of entropy on vetiver here . I could end up read for weeks . Looks like I ’ll have to plant some .
