1. Wangaratta – Heartland on the Edge
Wangaratta is a small town in Victoria’s north-eastern plains. It lies 230 km northeast of Melbourne, with wide open paddocks and a vast sky. The town is dotted with gum trees, rolling farmland and agricultural life. In summer, however, the invisible touch of extreme dryness transforms the familiar into the uncanny. This year, it was Panicum effusum – also known as “hairy panic” by locals.
Panicum effusum, a perennial grass with finely haired leaves, is found in Australia’s inland grasslands, from savannas to montane grasslands. It dries out into tumbleweeds in crucible-like seasons and waits for a wind to blow them around.
2. A town Buried Alive
Imagine walking out and finding a wall of dried grass that is two to three meters high, and six metres long. It’s a bizarre barricade that you did not notice had formed overnight.
Jason Perna, a resident of the area, had a great morning.
He told ABC Goulburn Murray: “I walked out of the front door today to find that there was a six-metre-wide spread of tumbleweed on the front of the home, again.”
The neighbours of the victim were also affected. Pam Twitchett described:
Twitchett told Time that clearing the grass mats was physically and mentally exhausting.
Even the front door was covered. The hair-fine stalks were so dense that you couldn’t even see your car or open the door to the garage.
3. The Invisible Enemy – Nature, Agriculture, and Wind
Residents blamed a neglected paddock nearby for the invasion. The land was once used to grow hay and then abandoned by the farmer, which made it the ideal launchpad for the panic glut. Without anything to control the grass, seedheads matured, dried, and, when blown by the wind, rolled through town.
A Perna neighbour made a wry comment:
It would be wonderful if the farmer actually cultivated the land or slashed or ploughed it to prevent tumbleweed from spreading or growing.
El Niño’s drought was a major factor. This was exacerbated by the dry summer and low rainfall.
4. When cleaning feels like futility
Many residents had the same morning task every day: clearing tumbleweed. Some residents spent up to eight hours clearing tumbleweed, only for the next day’s accumulations to be even worse.
The SBS News reported that people were losing their patience.
It is frustrating. “You know you have a couple of hours of work ahead of yourself, and that is always displeasing,” said Jason Perna
The community began to feel the effects of the constant sweeping.
5. Council Steps In Tentatively
The Rural City of Wangaratta council was under pressure. Although its powers were restricted, since the grass was not a fire hazard and remained within normal rural ecology, officials still convened a discussion in an effort to find redress.
Included in the following:
- The use of street sweepers (leaf blower) or machines to remove the piles.
- Experimenting on street cleaning vehicles with large vacuums is a creative and unusual manoeuvre
- Compost bins can be used to transform the untamed mass into garden mulch
The council was able to help with cleaning, but only in a limited and ad-hoc way.
6. Local Spirit Among the Grass
Many locals turned to humour and community despite the ordeal. One wag said that this might be a good opportunity to start a scarecrow company or raise goats to eat the mounds.
A resident who is a pragmatist and humorous said:
Jason Perna quipped, “It’s another day in paradise.”
The crisis was framed as “a first-world problem” that had to be shared and endured.
Yet beneath the jest lay resilience–neighbours helping neighbours shovel by shovel, cup of tea after cup of tea, community bound by dust and laughter.
7. Beyond Wangaratta – An Ecological Pattern
The hairy panic that erupted in Wangaratta, Australia, wasn’t a one-off. Inland Australia is prone to tumbleweed invasions, particularly when wet weather is followed by hot, still air, causing explosive germination.
Students and researchers at Charles Sturt University in New South Wales highlighted the difficulty of stopping it if you don’t have a sustained effort.
- For a large area to be controlled, it takes at least two years of extensive herbicide application and tilling. This is not a task that can be accomplished by landowners with a patchwork arrangement.
- Fencing can help to a certain extent, but it is not enough. Seeds blow in too easily.
In the U.S., tumbleweeds such as the Russian thistle have also similarly engulfed parts of the country, burying homes in South Dakota, California, and other states under tons of dry stems that required heavy machinery to remove.
8. Livestock, Ecology and Landscape
It is not toxic to pets, but it may be harmful for livestock. Especially sheep. When eaten in quantity shortly after rain, it leads to photosensitivity called “yellow big-head”, causing blistering on exposed skin and even death. Once tumbleweed is dried, the toxicity of this plant decreases.
Panicum effusum is a plant that thrives on low-fertility soils. It tolerates drought and can spread its seeds by wind, or even by adhering to mud and vehicles. The resilience of Panicum effusum is the key to its survival as well as its annoyance.
9. Solutions and Hope for the Future
Although the 2016 event was dramatic and shocking, lessons have been learned since then:
- Land Management Matters. Regular ploughing, planting of pastures, and mowing can reduce tumbleweed dramatically.
- Community-scale interventions, such as big vacuum trucks, fences, or coordinated weed-reduction plans, can help, but require planning and funding.
- Environmental education: Teaching why hairy pansies flourish–and local patterns of neglect, wind, and rain combine–can develop both empathy and actions.
- Legislative Options: Some have suggested frameworks to hold landowners accountable where unmanaged paddocks increase hazards in residential zones
10. Epilogue – A Town Reborn and Eyes on Tomorrow
The grass began to shrink by the end of the summer. Winds changed, rain arrived (finally), and tumbleweed towers decreased. The streets were cleaned; hand tools and gardens were hidden.
Residents were able to walk through yards that had been turned into a desert of straw, where light finally broke through and cars could breathe. Doors also opened easily. Wangaratta endured and collaborated in the story of hairy panic. They also found humour in the absurd.
The story is a testimony to the power of geography and human negligence in creating a crisis and how the community can come together and respond. Wangaratta will probably see another boom someday. For now, it is moving forward with stories, Scarecrow Jokes, and maybe a new sense of stewardship in the vast Australian sky.