Japanese Knotweed

Gingernutty

I'm trying to get my little yard turned into something like a garden.

The yards around it are badly fly tipped and the gardener won't touch mine until the fly tipped rubbish is removed.

In an effort to get the work underway, I've tried to get quotes from land clearance specialists.

The only quote I had was for...







get this.........







£18,000. Minimum.







For a series of six 12' x 21' yards.


I tried to get the guy who quoted me to come and have a look and give me a proper estimate....

and he bottled it.

He won't touch the knotweed which, if pulled, would become controlled waste.

What do I do now?

The work needs doing. The knotweed is getting closer and I'm not physically capable of doing this work.

Plan B is to try and hire a skip, get a couple of labourers to fill it, leave the plant life where it is and buy industrial quantities of glyphosphate weedkiller.

Do I contact the council?

What happens now?

carefullycautious

Do you own these other yards? Sorry your post is not very clear - why are you having to pay 18,000 to clear all these yards. As for clearing Japanese Knotwood where is it sited.

Gingernutty

I don't own the other yards but tried to get a quote to clear them so the gardener would work on mine.

Fat chance of that.

I've written to the council's email address with a couple of photos.

I'm just stuck.

I can't physically do the work in my garden and the guy who can won't until the other yards are cleared.

patman99

Is the knotweed in your yard yet?. If not, then I can see no reason as to why the gardener won't touch it.

elsien

It depends on your council. A neighbour has knotweed that they're allowing to spread and the council advised me that as it was on private land they have no enforcement powers. They did agree to come and spray as a one off but it was the wrong time of year so had little effect. I'd have to sue the neighbour to make him deal with it, and he has far more money than I do, so I know how that'd go.
If there is no knotweed in your land as yet, I can't see what the problem with clearing it is? It is controlled waste, but you can incinerate the bits in situ, although you still need to make sure it doesn't miraculously regenerate.
https://www.gov.uk/japanese-knotweed-giant-hogweed-and-other-invasive-plants

You can get rid in three years if done properly. Unfortunately my neighbour has no intention of doing it properly so we're basically firefighting as best we can.

robin58

How about going the council way.

You said the other yards have been "badly fly tipped".

Could you not see if the council would proceed in getting an enforcement on the owners of these yards to clear away the "waste" - which would hopefully mean the knotweed as well.

Found an interesting link about Knotweed on Devon's Gov site.

http://www.devon.gov.uk/japanese_knotweed.htm

On this site is a PDF for a pamphlet which gives advice on how to find out who is responsible for removal and possible ways of killing it.

http://www.devon.gov.uk/knotweedbooklet.pdf

Good luck.

patman99

I remember reading on a forum that injecting glycerene into the stems will kill Japanese knotweed (although it does take 3-4 goes).

Gingernutty

patman99 wrote: »

I remember reading on a forum that injecting glycerene into the stems will kill Japanese knotweed (although it does take 3-4 goes).

The plan I'd heard of was to use something like this to carefully inject gyphosphate directly into the stems.

ukjoel

We found the stuff when we moved into our place. The neighbours think it came along when they had their lawn returfed.

We have been treating it for the last three years and its not been a problem.

Admittedly we had it in two or three places but now its only coming up in one of those and thats because the neighbours have been treating it incorrectly.

We have been letting it grow until the end of August/start of September and then snipping it down to about 12 inches and injecting some very heavy duty weedkiller into the nodes.

We then chucked a condom on top and covered it with a rubber band to stop rain getting in and splashing the heavy duty weedkiller anywhere else.

Apart from the fact part of the garden looks like we have had a swingers party its worked 100%.

Total cost is about £20. Because the weedkiller goes down to the rhizomes its possible you wont need to treat every one but I would focus on the bigger stems where you can get more weedkiller down. Do it at the right time of year and it takes it back down to the rhizome over winter and kills it off.

This is the method the national trust use on large areas and its worked for them. Problem is not the plant but the tradtitional way of killing it is it strim, and surface spray, and thats the worst thing you can do with this.

daveyjp

First rule of knotweed, do not cut anything unless it is dead.

What are you doing with all those clippings?

matty_hunt

Ive dealt with knotweed before. If I recall, to dig it up you must dig four foot deep, remove everything, the soil and all, and then get it all disposed of under controlled conditions. Not really practical. I used to cut it to about five inches, cant remember what time of year, sorry, then inject the last chamber with neat glyphosate. This is not the ready to use stuff you get in the shops but the concentrated trade stuff. Then burn the cuttings. Word of warning...as the 'canes' are chambered, they can explode quite spectacularly spitting hot sap when burning. Then I would hit the regrowth every month with Roundup BioActive. Takes about three years but got it in the end and never contaminated anywhere by burning it.