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Japanese knotweed – The dreadful buds of March

Japanese knotweed – The dreadful buds of March

Japanese Knotweed

Pop Larkin knows spring is in the air when new Japanese knotweed shoots are spotted coming up through ground recently covered in frost. Our Regional Manager in London spotted some knotweed early this week, followed closely by our Regional Manager in the South West, on a site in Devon.

Japanese knotweed is back!

Pop Larkin knows spring is in the air when new Japanese knotweed shoots are spotted coming up through ground recently covered in frost. Our Regional Manager in London spotted some knotweed early this week, followed closely by our Regional Manager in the South West, on a site in Devon. March is a bit early for the dreadful buds of knotweed, but maybe climate in London and the South West is better than in the rest of the UK. Check out our knotweed pictures gallery for other spottings.

It shouldn’t come as a great surprise as knotweed does this every year, but normally starting in April. But it might come as a greater surprise to those who have recently bought a property and wonder what these fast growing shoots are which are beginning to take over their garden. If it is knotweed, and you weren’t told the property was affected by Japanese knotweed when you bought it, I’d like to hear from you because we can help. Despite the requirement on sellers to disclose the presence of knotweed on the Law Society’s pre-contract enquiry form (TA6) we still hear of many cases of intentional concealment. If you want to know what knotweed looks like then check out our Japanese knotweed identification video.

Despite the efforts of the knotweed industry I fear that Japanese knotweed is winning the battle. There seems more knotweed around today than there was 5 years ago. We are certainly seeing a big increase in work and visits to our website continue to rise month on month. But perhaps what is more worrying is the number of enquiries we receive from both the commercial and domestic sectors where herbicide treatments have failed, even when carried out by so called “professionals” or “experts”. The ugly face of “dormancy” is beginning to show as was predicted by many, myself included, several years ago.

And we’ll have to wait and see what effect the banning of certain herbicides and chemicals effective in killing Japanese knotweed will have on the success rate of herbicide treatments.

So what is causing knotweed to spread? There is no simple answer, although there are several known ways that knotweed spread can be accelerated, disturbance of knotweed infested soil being no 1. I’ve seen knotweed material put into the green bin at amenity sites, ready to go off to be made into supposedly helpful compost. I’ve also seen knotweed growing from compost in peoples’ gardens, it doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together!

These dreadful buds of March will grow very rapidly into tall clumps of dense knotweed by June, unless something is done to prevent it. Don’t ignore the problem, speak to us, we’re here to help with Japanese knotweed removal. In fact that is all we do, day in day out, so we know a bit about it ….

Robert Spaceman

“We had a large stand of bamboo removed, thinned, contained and replaced. The customer service has been first class. Joe and Jason were fabulous and kept me well informed at all times”.

5/5