You truly need heavy equipment to remove miscanthus. I want to give you advice so this never happens to you again: when interested in any plant, research it's size at maturity. It will help you plan for space. What likely happened to previous owner is that he bought a cutesy gallon sized plant of miscanthus, completely unaware of monster it would become. Most of us have made that mistake, btw.

back to miscanthus, perhaps you can mow over it, apply roundup, repeat. Ive never done this but short of heavy equip, removal will be a bear!

I'm fine with the manual labor, just trying to save the embarrassment if I hack away for hours just to see it retaliate with force this summer. lol

My neighbor has some hedge trimmers and a chainsaw he said I could use.
I might see if he has any ideas for tackling it...

And I totally agree about the understanding of plant maturity prior to planting.

The blueberry bush I planted yesterday has 4 feet of space on both sides, and room to grow 8 feet+ tall.
My wife said it looks "empty" right now and wanted to fill in the gaps with more iris, but I told her how big the blueberry bush is supposed to get and that the iris rhizome would just take off in a few years. It would be a mess to deal with later.

It definitely looks "empty" for now, but that's what a good mulch job is for!
It looks clean, and neat.

In a few seasons we should have some decent fill in there.

Might work for one of the two plants... The other one would be difficult to get access to with a truck.

It's only going to get worse, so I want to tackle this as soon as possible.

I have used a reciprocating saw and shovel to cut small trees (8') out of the ground. You might be able after cutting the leaves off to cut them in sections.

Yes!
This is justification for more powertools! haha

I'll definitely give this a try.

I use the blade made for greenwood and brush right into the soil. If it dulls on a rock, so it goes. The tool is great for trimming trees and brush , so it will be a well used tool. The electric ones are a good deal cheaper. If your yard is small and cords will reach, it will do, but if have a large yard or acreage, spring for the extra bucks and get 2 batteries. The charge will only get you about 30 minutes or so. That is the only draw back. But not having the cord is great when you are up a ladder attacking trees. One less thing to worry about

Ornamental grasses are popular right now. Many are much easier to start from small divisions than seed. Perhaps a nursery or someone who wants miscanthus might help with the work in exchange for some of the clump.

I have tall ornamental grasses growing around the gas line to my house. How can I kill them?

ok, so I hit the pawn shop and found a reciprocating saw for $60. Talked the guy down to $15 - Pawn shops are great if you know how they work!

I bought a pack of 9" blades from Amazon, 2 days later I was hacking away at the grass clump.

I've since removed three of the 5 grass clusters around my house. One of them was 3 feet deep in the ground and 7 feet in diameter. It felt like I was cutting a 6x6 post in the center of the clump!

I hope that did it... I've since planted peonies in place of the grass.

If the peonies survive the season and I don't see any grass pop up, I'll call it a win.

Thanks again for the suggestions!

Now I have two more clumps to tackle...

Just a word on the blueberry. Blueberries generally fruit best if they have more than one cultivar for cross pollination. In addition, they require quite acid soil. My soil is acidic sand, yet my blueberries, in a dedicated bed, struggled for three years until I finally did a soil test--6.5 and took the Ph down a full degree with soil sulphur. Now, many years later, they do great.