John Anderson’s Batesford house inundated with tumbleweed

Hairy panic, roly-poly, tumbleweeds, whatever you call them, they’ve wreaked havoc on a Batesford home.

A Batesford man has been left perplexed after his property was inundated with ‘hairy panic’.

John Anderson, who has lived in the area for 14 years, said he had never seen anything like the scenes that unfolded at the weekend.

Tumbleweeds – known colloquially as hairy panic – began infiltrating the property on Friday.

By Monday, garden beds were full, doorways blocked and weeds were waist high.

“We do get them every year, but not like this,” Mr Anderson said.

“It’s just so out of the box.

John Anderson's Batesford home has been inundated with tumbleweed. Picture: Alison Wynd

Mr Anderson’s flower beds are covered in the weed. Picture: Alison Wynd

“It’s covering everything, it’s all over the pathway, the driveway, we can’t get into the front door.”

Mr Anderson said he’s at a loss as to how he’ll go about removing them.

“It’s the million-dollar question, how do you get rid of it?” he said.

“I don’t know, they’re difficult to move, they won’t fit in the green waste.

“They’d take ages to pick up, I need a big vacuum cleaner.”

John Anderson sits in the thickets of hairy panic. Picture: Alison Wynd

The dried plants are everywhere. Picture: Alison Wynd

The tumbleweeds come from a plant called anicum effusum.

In dry conditions, the plants release tumbleweeds, which spreads seeds.

The weeds can cause havoc given the right conditions.

In 2016, the town of Wangaratta in the state’s north became completely overrun with the weeds.

Mr Johnson believes the problem is linked to nearby paddocks.

“There’s a big 170 acre property and nothing’s happened on it for a while,” Mr Anderson said.

“I reckon if the weeds on it had been sprayed and it got some pasture on it we’d be right, but no.”

Now it appears Mr Anderson will just have to wait for the weeds to leave on their own accord.

“We’ve just got to wait for the wind to change and it’ll go to someone else’s house,” he said.

Originally published as John Anderson’s Batesford house inundated with tumbleweed