If you decide it's knotweed, what I did in my garden is let it grow and treat with Glyphosate from July/August onwards (cut down and fill the hollow stems, making sure to do this in a period of dry weather). You can also apply on both sides of the foliage (which you have to do if the stems are small), but it's more work.
This year the knotweed we treated last year has essentially disappeared, but we had some new (weaker) growth coming up in new spots (not the original stand). Not sure if these are just fragments that were dormant or other parts of the root system being galvanised, but we'll carry out the same treatment.
I had masses of Japanese knotweed in my garden but managed to treat it. Still have the occasional shoot coming up but have worse weeds to deal with.
@pippip ... The OP's photo does not show zig zag stems nor is it growing though tarmac ... you're confusing the question with the photos put up by other posters for comparison.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
@pippip What have you found trickier than knotweed to tackle? I'm curious to know so I can jump on it if I see any in the future (: My garden is still a blank canvas pending resolving our knotweed situation.
@Molamola Same as you really.Originally the garden was just a jungle of
weeds, brambles, knotweed, bindweed, sticky willy, tree seedlings grown to 5,
10, 15-20ft, you name it…
It was easy to hack everything down and
treat the whole area - digging up or using weed killer as it was, as you say, a
blank canvas. I did that over a few years, then started
planting it up over the years.
Because it’s now planted with decorative
plants it’s now more difficult to get in there to root out the weeds, brambles
etc or apply weed killer as I have to avoid the pretty stuff. So I haven’t use weed killer for years I
just pull things up. It’s quite a “wild” messy garden, quite big
and I just don’t weed that much, so there are always weeds lurking about, including
the odd shoot of knotweed. Which is no more troublesome / or as troublesome as any
of the other weeds.
Give me rough idea of what and how you’ve
been dealing with your knotweed. And I’ll post back later what worked for me.
I have a self-appointed PhD in Japanese knotweed.
Posts
This year the knotweed we treated last year has essentially disappeared, but we had some new (weaker) growth coming up in new spots (not the original stand). Not sure if these are just fragments that were dormant or other parts of the root system being galvanised, but we'll carry out the same treatment.
Yes just to confirm these are my only photos, the second set was another poster, added an extra one in here
So I'm hoping this means it's not knotweed - but our site, definitely has a knotweed problem!
Thanks so much for all your comments
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
It was easy to hack everything down and treat the whole area - digging up or using weed killer as it was, as you say, a blank canvas. I did that over a few years, then started planting it up over the years.
Because it’s now planted with decorative plants it’s now more difficult to get in there to root out the weeds, brambles etc or apply weed killer as I have to avoid the pretty stuff. So I haven’t use weed killer for years I just pull things up. It’s quite a “wild” messy garden, quite big and I just don’t weed that much, so there are always weeds lurking about, including the odd shoot of knotweed. Which is no more troublesome / or as troublesome as any of the other weeds.
Give me rough idea of what and how you’ve been dealing with your knotweed. And I’ll post back later what worked for me. I have a self-appointed PhD in Japanese knotweed.