Continental touring and Japanese Knotweed

[Vorpal]

Horsetail is a dinosaur amongst plants. It's ability to shield itself from chemicals and regenerate after any organic method is impressive. The clue is in the name (silica) I'm lucky I that I don't come across it in my gardens much.

No wonder it's still about. Nothing will conquer it.

I love horsetail. It's so weird & cool. I've never had it my garden, though.

[Heltor Chasca]

Horsetail is a dinosaur amongst plants. It's ability to shield itself from chemicals and regenerate after any organic method is impressive. The clue is in the name (silica) I'm lucky I that I don't come across it in my gardens much.

No wonder it's still about. Nothing will conquer it.

I love horsetail. It's so weird & cool. I've never had it my garden, though.

I'm with you on that. It's a hard one to get rid of if you don't want it. But so beautiful.

Plants fascinate me. They don't seem to be able to 'think' yet they are able to use strategy to propagate. Example: Yarrow will start to grow in a flat habit in lawn, just below lawnmower blade height after being clipped once or twice. How do they know? Even scientists can't get a handle on many things plants do.

What about acacia trees on the savanna? Somehow they can 'tell' each other they are being grazed on by giraffe. So all the trees in the area shoot out high levels of tannin to make the leaves taste awful. BUT only the leaves at 'giraffe height' to save energy. How?

It's kind of wonderful we don't know everything.

[Vorpal]

I don't think yarrow 'know' exactly, but yarrow growing in completely wild places certainly has taller / higher leaves. And I'm sure that the varieties that survive in lawns, do so because their leaves don't come up high enough to be clipped. But that said, I like yarrow, too, and let it grow in my lawn. I have numerous unmown clumps because of things growing in them that other people think are weeds

[DaveP]

I personally think it is demonised beyond all reason. Propaganda? It's relatively easy to control organically and I have NEVER seen it causing any environmental harm.

I'm not sure what you would class as environmental harm, but I have certainly seen the stuff doing property damage - destroying tarmac surfaces and apparently causing cracking of concrete slabs.
Another reason to be wary of it is the impact it can have on the value and saleability of your property - and adjacent ones. Sure, it could be just demonization, but the consequences can be dire. Some poor soul near me topped himself and his wife last year because he was concerned that their recently purchased new build was now worthless because of an encroaching patch of JK.
All the same, I do feel that a plant that is so hard to control doesn't really need friends. If you know an easy way to control it you are in a position from which you could do the world a favour...

[Paulatic]

If you want a mortgage this is what they say

LENDERS INSIST ON CALLING IN PROFESSIONALS
A loan provider can ruin your hopes of buying a dream home if it comes across the words ‘Japanese knotweed’ on a surveyor’s report.
At the very least it will demand a professional eradication plan that may cost £3,000, with experts forced to provide a lengthy guarantee against its return before a mortgage offer is made.
BARCLAYS demands you call in an expert who is a member of the Property Care Association – and who offers a ten-year insurance-backed guarantee against its return if the plant has been discovered within seven metres of the home.
It will not offer a mortgage until the work has been done.
NATIONWIDE BUILDING SOCIETY also baulks at lending against a home with a garden infested with knotweed – unless you promise to sort it out.
It says: ‘If it is prominent less than seven metres from the house we request a specialist report about eradication before deciding whether we can lend.
‘Even if further away we require written confirmation from the borrower they are happy to proceed with a mortgage application despite presence of the plant.’
SANTANDER is also not keen on the spreading tentacles of knotweed. It expects you not only to call in a professional to stamp it out before lending you money, but also to then keep money aside to keep the garden clear of it. It says: ‘It can take several seasons of spraying with specialist chemicals to eradicate.
‘Work is often not completed before the mortgage term starts so we ask for the cost of remedial work to be held in a separate account.
‘We will not turn down a mortgage just because of knotweed but we will want it eradicated.’
LEEDS BUILDING SOCIETY says it will not lend money when knotweed is present in the garden and a valuer concludes it offers a significant risk either to the property or the chances of selling it in the future.
SKIPTON BUILDING SOCIETY says it assesses on a ‘case-by-case’ basis. But before making a loan offer it will demand that eradication work is done by a qualified professional with an insurance backed guarantee against the weed’s return.
YORKSHIRE BANK AND CLYDESDALE BANK – both owned by National Australia Bank – make lending decisions on a case-by-case basis. But it warns: ‘If you have knotweed in the garden – and it comes up on a valuer’s report – you will struggle to get a mortgage unless it is professionally treated.
‘If located far from the house you may be OK.’


Read more: http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/mort ... z4Bry16E00
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[Silverdorking]

Damage and cost for property owners as above. Environmental damage, as with many invasive imports, no native control. Back on the slopes of Mt Fugi, Japan co-exist a number of predatory beetles and fungi which keep it in check. Over here in Blighty where it is now ubiquitous along both road and riparian corridors, it forms dense, mono cultural stands, where no other native species can survive and no habitat value created. We have the Victorian plant hunters to thank for popularising this plant as a garden exotic- a bad choice!

[PJ520]

We have the Victorian plant hunters to thank for popularising this plant as a garden exotic- a bad choice!

this answers a question I was about to raise. How did JKW get to Europe in the first place? I didn't suppose it was a careless Japanese cyclist. On the E Coast of the US starlings are a major pest because someone wanted to have all the birds mentioned in Shakespeare. In the UK grey squirrels were introduced by another C19 someone who was worried about running out of things to shoot or so I saw on a BBC documentary many years ago

[Heltor Chasca]

I'll hold my hands up. I'm responsible for spreading squirrels, I think from the tree-rats smeared on my tyres all the way from Somerset, to Dorset and IIRC once into Wiltshire. Sorry.

[DaveP]

I'll hold my hands up. I'm responsible for spreading squirrels, I think from the tree-rats smeared on my tyres all the way from Somerset, to Dorset and IIRC once into Wiltshire. Sorry.

Mmm. I've spread a few foxes in my time. I feel no guilt, even though I was trying not to...

[pwa]

I personally think it is demonised beyond all reason. Propaganda? It's relatively easy to control organically and I have NEVER seen it causing any environmental harm.

I'm not sure what you would class as environmental harm, but I have certainly seen the stuff doing property damage - destroying tarmac surfaces and apparently causing cracking of concrete slabs.
Another reason to be wary of it is the impact it can have on the value and saleability of your property - and adjacent ones. Sure, it could be just demonization, but the consequences can be dire. Some poor soul near me topped himself and his wife last year because he was concerned that their recently purchased new build was now worthless because of an encroaching patch of JK.
All the same, I do feel that a plant that is so hard to control doesn't really need friends. If you know an easy way to control it you are in a position from which you could do the world a favour...

Having battled with Japanese Knotweed on several sites (including cycle tracks) I must reassure anyone with this problem that it can be defeated if you roll your sleeves up and get stuck in. Its reputation for indestructability comes from people who spray it once or twice with weedkiller then give up. It takes repeated and varied treatment over months and sometimes years to get rid of a well established infestation, but it can be done.

As I said earlier, you will need much less weedkiller if you first flatten the area and cover with a tough geo-textile, possibly double layer, and weighted down with gravel. wood chips or similar. That will reduce the problem to the occasional spots, often around the edge, where the JK still punches through. That is where the weedkiller comes in. Attack the leaves when they are young and about a metre off the ground. If the plant gets taller than that, hack it down and spray when it has got back up to one metre. As well as giving softer and more absorbent leaf, this also enables safer spraying. You don't want it all over yourself or you neighbours. You may have to spray several times over a year or two, during which you will see the plants getting fewer and less healthy.

[DaveP]

Just to clarify, would this be using professional only weed killers or the over the counter glyphosphate which is about all that most of us can obtain?
And which may shortly be denied us
Just glad I managed to deal with my comfrey before that happens! It just needed moving, but getting it all out of the old spot...

[Elizabeth_S]

Horsetail is a dinosaur amongst plants. It's ability to shield itself from chemicals and regenerate after any organic method is impressive. The clue is in the name (silica) I'm lucky I that I don't come across it in my gardens much.

No wonder it's still about. Nothing will conquer it.

I love horsetail. It's so weird & cool. I've never had it my garden, though.

I had it covering most of my veg patch when we moved here, it moved in from next door who do nothing about it so we will never really be rid of it, but we have it well under control. If you have the time, you cover the ground with old carpet or similar, something thick and smothering and leave it for 2-3 years; that helps. Then you put it up every time you see it, use a knife and deep in the soil as you can, but don't dig, you just keep on pulling it up. If you dig, you break the root system up and the problem gets worse. We tried weedkiller, even bruising the stems first. It didn't work, pulling does though, eventually. We can now dig and have our veg patch.

[Vorpal]

Just to clarify, would this be using professional only weed killers or the over the counter glyphosphate which is about all that most of us can obtain?
And which may shortly be denied us

Well, now the UK can determine it's own destiny when it comes to glyphosate

[pwa]

I must admit my use of glyphosate has mainly been on a commercial basis, using diluted concentrate as farmers do. I imagine that would be more concentrated than the garden centre variety, as it is intended for people who have had the appropriate training, including consideration for bees, etc. I used it because it was, for a long time, the default systemic weedkiller that was not too bad from an environmental point of view. Maybe there are better alternatives now. I could be out of date.

Glyphosate is out of patent and is consequently cheap. Newer alternatives might well be dearer.

Mechanical removal of weeds is often the best way, avoiding any concerns over chemicals. Not always practical with JK, of course.