Japanese Knotweed in my garden affecting the sale of my flat :(

jbainbridge

donfanatico wrote: »

As a sidenote, We live in rented accommodation and the landlord has failed to acknowledge our concern for the JK present to the back of the house in the garden. We just moved in 3 weeks ago, they had cleared the garden but now it is already grown back to a foot.

Who is responsible here and how do we make him seriously rethink his strategy to dealing with it?

I would think it is not your responsibility. You should though -
- WRITE the LL a letter stating your concerns
- inform the immediate neighbours

moneyistooshorttomention

donfanatico wrote: »

As a sidenote, We live in rented accommodation and the landlord has failed to acknowledge our concern for the JK present to the back of the house in the garden. We just moved in 3 weeks ago, they had cleared the garden but now it is already grown back to a foot.

Who is responsible here and how do we make him seriously rethink his strategy to dealing with it?

Maybe show him some photos of buildings destroyed by it? I've seen some of them on the Web and they look horrific?

Maybe tell him his insurance company might not be very pleased at putting them at risk of a payout?

Maybe find a couple of authoritative articles on the Web by experts on it telling it like it is?

moneyistooshorttomention

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

I think that might depend on just when you might choose to move. There does seem to be hope on the horizon re dealing with this. I understand the problem with having imported it into Britain is that we don't have any "natural predators" for it here and hence it has got out of control to some extent.

I read recently that experiments are currently being conducted with some little insect prevalent in Japan (but unknown here) that is a "natural predator" to it and does a very effective job of destroying it in Japan. Apparently this insect wouldn't be likely to create a problem in its turn if released in Britain and they think that maybe they will have successfully finished testing it by about 3 years time and can then let it loose here to bring our outbreak under control.

(That's from memory. I didn't retain a link to this article, but someone might know the one I mean and where to find it and can share it with us to clarify on the details of this.)

Found it....must have read that article some time back then.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8555378.stm

donfanatico

jbainbridge wrote: »

I would think it is not your responsibility. You should though -
- WRITE the LL a letter stating your concerns
- inform the immediate neighbours

To be fair, the landlord did say that It is actually coming from a neighbours plot that is housing council tenants, not sure whether they are on housing benefit or it is actually a council property, I believe it is the latter, and he also said that there is no point dealing with it unless all of the neighbours deal with it adn that he will write to all neighbors. However, speaking to someone who rents from the same LL they said that they are VERY slow in desalign with isssue as we have found for other things I mentioned in another thread here.

For our immediate attention, can we just keep cutting it back so it doesn't overgrow or does this make the problem worse?

elantan

yep i had heard of that trial, i do worry however about the danger to the eco system, we have such a delicate eco system here, our bee's are in trouble as it is and i hope if we were to introduce another species it wouldn't become a bigger pest than the JK

princeofpounds

I seem to have a vague memory of an article where someone injected the stems with some kind of weed killer - anyone else come across this?

Yes.

Glyphosphate is wonderful stuff in my opinion, but apparently one of the issues with the knotweed is that the root system is so deep. So the plant dies at the upper level, which stops sap circulation, and the weedkiller might not penetrate to the lowest levels of rhizomes.

I think the idea behind the injection is that it travels within the plant faster, and so there is less chance that some parts remain untouched.

No idea how scientific it is but anecdotally I have heard good results from people doing this in the autumn.

Yorkie1

We had JK on our allotment site.

We got a professional in, who injected each and every stem with industrial strength glyphosate. (He made sure he got each one by using spray paint to mark a dot on the injected stems).

I can't remember when he did the treatment, or how often - but it was gone within a year and has not returned.

donfanatico

Interesting:

http://howtokilljapaneseknotweed.blogspot.co.uk/

moneyistooshorttomention

So vinegar then.

Shame they didn't go into more detail on it.

So, in best MSE fashion, do you think I should go and buy shares in Sarsons then?;) Guess yer bog standard malt vinegar is what they mean...it wasn't best balsamic:rotfl:

donfanatico

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

So vinegar then.

Shame they didn't go into more detail on it.

So, in best MSE fashion, do you think I should go and buy shares in Sarsons then?;) Guess yer bog standard malt vinegar is what they mean...it wasn't best balsamic:rotfl:

I will try on a section and see what happens