Japanese Knotweed

Marvel1

Next door garden, vacant at present, landlord/owner looks like currently doing the house out, but not been there in a while.

Anyway my Auntie popped round and saw me washing the car in the lane and noticed next door overgrown garden and mention it's it looks like Japanese Knotweed, viewing pics online and it is :eek:. None in my garden.

I have heard of it but never know what it looked like until now.

So at the moment I'm thinking ring up Environmental Health to inspect it and confirm. What would happen if it is?

daveyjp

Environmental Helath probably haven't a clue. Environment Agency will.

If it is it needs killing! Use the search function to find a few threads about the problem and what needs to be done to destroy it.

I see patches every day. In the last two weeks the areas I see have gone from nothing to new stems in full leaf a metre high.

Mr.Generous

if they won't do anything you should, put tarpaulin over it and once a week trample any new growth. With no light and water it cant go on for ever. A hard cover will be pushed away, a tarp moves.

daveyjp

This is a plant which grows through tarmac! A tarp will make no difference.

It needs proper treatment once confirmed as knotweed.

AnotherJoe

I think the plan would be, a tarp keeps it in darkness and it can't grow through it like it can through solid surfaces.
Amd it's a plant not superman, so it needs light and without light for long enough, it will die.

Riggyman

cjdavies wrote: »

Next door garden, vacant at present, landlord/owner looks like currently doing the house out, but not been there in a while.

Anyway my Auntie popped round and saw me washing the car in the lane and noticed next door overgrown garden and mention it's it looks like Japanese Knotweed, viewing pics online and it is :eek:. None in my garden.

I have heard of it but never know what it looked like until now.

So at the moment I'm thinking ring up Environmental Health to inspect it and confirm. What would happen if it is?

See my previous posts about Japenese Knotweed. Buy some glycophosphate from Amazon for £20 (or Round Up from your local day/garden centre, the stuff that says "kills knotweed"), spend £10 on a back pack sprayer. Spray liberally on knotweed, especially when the landlord/owner isn't there.

deFoix

For such a learned forum it is disappointing how much hype surrounds JK.

Sound Advice: Wait until the plant flowers then spray with glyphosate herbicide (e.g. Roundup) on the top and under the leaves. it will die. Next season if any regrowth spray again.

90% of the battle with JK is knowing its there in the first place!

D00gie72

OP is talking about JK in their neighbours garden. I know they may be absent but are you all really recommending they trespass to spray weed killer on someone else's garden?? I can understand getting an expert to confirm if it definitely is JK - but surely then its the owners responsibility to remove - the OP can't go in and get rid of it themselves surely?

stator

Contact the landowner and tell them about it and ask for permission to spray it with weedkiller. (Make it clear you arne't offering to remove the JK, just to spray it to try and prevent it spreading).

cloo

Yes, we got rid of it from our garden by treating it that way.


However, if you're planning to sell in the next three years, you might want to see if you can get it to be professionally dealt with; we nearly came a cropper with selling as it was only just the season when we could declare it clear for good as we sold; but we couldn't get a professional guarantee as there was nothing to treat! Luckily the buyer was not bothered and had dealt with it before himself, and was paying cash. Honestly, if we could have pretended we'd never had any we would have, given the ridiculous song and dance lenders make about something that is entirely treatable (we couldn't though, as the upstairs flat knew about it).

dc197

Boler1985 wrote: »

For such a learned forum it is disappointing how much hype surrounds JK.

Sound Advice: Wait until the plant flowers then spray with glyphosate herbicide (e.g. Roundup) on the top and under the leaves. it will die. Next season if any regrowth spray again.

90% of the battle with JK is knowing its there in the first place!

I hope you mean to say spray it AFTER it has finished flowering.
Applying pesticides while blooming is irresponsible and, if the manufacturer's instructions tell you not to do it, possibly illegal.