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

Taylor31

Hi can anyone help I have read so much on jk I have a really large clump of very quick growing plants that I think may be it and there are also a few more shoots in other places in the garden. It sounds jut like it but the leaves look different. It does back over the winter can anyone tell?The leaves don't come individually but are 6-7 on separate stems. I want to post a photo but the site won't let me

Should I be worried??


Amanda

Mojisola

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=japanese+knotweed&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=LTzkUdKEGKXe7AbUkoGAAg&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1024&bih=511

Plenty of images here so that people know what it looks like

Taylor31 wrote: »

Hi can anyone help I have read so much on jk I have a really large clump of very quick growing plants that I think may be it and there are also a few more shoots in other places in the garden. It sounds jut like it but the leaves look different. It does back over the winter can anyone tell?The leaves don't come individually but are 6-7 on separate stems. I want to post a photo but the site won't let me

Does it look like the pictures in seven-day-weekend's link?

Davesnave

Taylor31 wrote: »

Hi can anyone help I have read so much on jk I have a really large clump of very quick growing plants that I think may be it and there are also a few more shoots in other places in the garden. It sounds jut like it but the leaves look different. It does back over the winter can anyone tell?The leaves don't come individually but are 6-7 on separate stems. I want to post a photo but the site won't let me

Should I be worried??


Amanda

Could be Himalayan balsam. I went fishing in June and those were only at welly boot height. Two weeks later I went again and they were over my head! ( I'm not tall. )

Info here:

http://apps.rhs.org.uk/advicesearch/profile.aspx?pid=480

Mojisola

Davesnave wrote: »

Could be Himalayan balsam. I went fishing in June and those were only at welly boot height. Two weeks later I went again and they were over my head! ( I'm not tall. )

Info here:

http://apps.rhs.org.uk/advicesearch/profile.aspx?pid=480

It's a shame balsam is so invasive because it's an attractive plant.

Missme

I think the leaf shape sometimes makes people who are none the wiser (including myself) confuse JK with vine weed. Vine weed's leaves are more heart shaped, have white, 5-petaled flowers (like a pentagon with bits cut out) and no discernible bulky stem. With JK, the purple in the bamboo-like stem is carried through to the flowers which I have seen, in photos, looking like both irises without the twiddly bits and daisies with alopecia.

Davesnave

Missme wrote: »

I think the leaf shape sometimes makes people who are none the wiser (including myself) confuse JK with vine weed.

I'm not familiar with 'vine weed' in this country. It seems that when the term is used here, it's usually by people who have mis-heard "bindweed."

Is that what you mean?

JK is nothing like bindweed.

elsien

Davesnave wrote: »

JK is nothing like bindweed.

It isn't but in a panic stricken moment I mistook the two. My neighbour has JK which is slowly encroaching so when I found a tendril appearing where none had been before I did originally think the JK had escaped and set up home in mine. I had a week of worry before it finally sank in it was only bindweed.

Missme

Davesnave wrote: »

I'm not familiar with 'vine weed' in this country. It seems that when the term is used here, it's usually by people who have mis-heard "bindweed."

Is that what you mean?

JK is nothing like bindweed.

Thanks for this but you're just highlighting the problem of not being sure.

Grew up knowing bindweed with it's trumpet like flowers until they are fully opened but also have been given references to the stuff in my garden as vine weed.

Perhaps the only discernible difference then is the stem, or lack of it, and the colour.

Missme

elsien wrote: »

It isn't but in a panic stricken moment I mistook the two. My neighbour has JK which is slowly encroaching so when I found a tendril appearing where none had been before I did originally think the JK had escaped and set up home in mine. I had a week of worry before it finally sank in it was only bindweed.

...and if you google, you come up with all sorts because posts asking if X might be Y show the related image and some searchers may not delve beyond that!

moneyistooshorttomention

Re further identifiers of JK. The poster who commented on the nice smell hasn't come back, so I've been googling as to what it says about the smell.

One website = "flowers usually so sweet that their scent is sickening, but this year in addition they smell exactly like tom cat pee".

Another website = "crushed leaves emit a rank unpleasant smell"

At a guess = what the first website person was commenting on equalled said "rank unpleasant smell" and they were smelling the leaves, as well as the flowers.

Anyone who has "got up close and personal" care to comment on the accuracy, or otherwise, of those website descriptions?