D'oh!-I-Y

So far, using a combination of weedkiller and excavation, I felt I was getting the upper hand over our Japanese Knotweed and wannabe Audrey III.

Seriously. I had dreams like this.

But this was no time to ease up. As they say, The best defense is a good offense, and I intended to be as offensive as possible. AS USUAL, right?

When last I left you, I was digging and burning and hating. It wasn’t enough! Here are the last steps in my technique.

1. Drill. You are not going to get all the knotweed’s roots. I followed one down to a meter below grade, and then it took a turn straight down into the bowels of the earth. Spray the cut ends with…you guessed it! Let dry for a few days, and then take your drill and riddle the stinkers with holes. Cover each one completely with stump removing powder.
2. Fill. Fill in with uncontaminated dirt back up to grade, compacting as you go. Get bog standard dirt – anything with lots of organic matter or fertilizers will encourage fleeceflower to come back, and it needs no encouragement.
3. Cover. Get a big, nasty, impermeable tarp and cover the area. Go at least five feet beyond the kill zone. Weigh it down with big old rocks, and then cover the whole thing with landscape rocks or mulch. You won’t be growing anything here for a couple of years. I kept container plants on top.
4. Patrol. By now, you know the shoots and leaves and even the roots of your enemy. Check beyond the edges of the tarp for signs of life. If the tarp heaves up somewhere from new sprouts, peel it back, spray, and re-cover. Repeat at least once in a couple of weeks, then cut it back, and re-tarp. Stay alert!
5. Wait. And patrol. For a couple of years. You want at least a year to pass between the last sprout and the next step. Keep in mind it can re-sprout from rhizomes over ten years later. I had a resprout over a year after reading it the last rites, but I was able to bring the smackdown right away.
6. Resume your life (sort of). Get some of the fancy-pants landscape fabric – the stuff that lasts 25 years with the rubberized backing – and replace the tarp. Cut holes to plant stuff through. Don’t spend a lot of money on plants for this area, ‘cuz you may have to move them. Keep an eye out for scary leaves. Gardening will never be the same (sob!), but your alert level can step down a bit.

I am aware that some of these steps may be superfluous or not supported by research (particularly the bits about hating), but hey: success. Also, I’m not really much of one for weedkillers usually, but this is an unusual case. Outside of the technique described here,  controlled chemicals and injection equipment may give you good control. I did not cover those because they require licensure or a chunk of change to implement. My method: Cheap and Cathartic.

If you face knotweed, good luck, soldier!

Now what is a wedding? Well, Webster’s dictionary describes a wedding as: the process of removing weeds from one’s garden.

– Homer Simpson

When we bought the house (and for years afterwards), our yard was only a couple of cars on blocks and a bathtub shrine away from Redneck Nirvana.

We focused first on the interior, with necessary attention to Things That Were Blowing Up Right Now. Later, we moved on to Things That Could Cause a Freak Accident and slightly more leisurely points beyond. During this time, we mowed the scrubby grass, cut down the worst of the monster weeds, and planted a few gift plants. It’s all we had time for.

I wish I were kidding. This was our yard.

One of the gift plants was called “fleeceflower,” and it looked really pretty. It was vigorous and attractive, and I didn’t have to do a thing to it. It had pink veining on the leaves, and fluffy flowers in late summer.

What’s not to love?
Photo credit: Wikipedia/Ancatdubh43

But pretty is as pretty does, and in this case, pretty does Dallas. It’s a very busy plant, which is a nice way of saying it’s an evil, invasive bully from hell. When it first started its conquest of our garden, I was pleased – but when it knocked out the ditch lilies and lily of the valley, I started to be concerned. When it started heaving up large rocks, I freaked. And researched.  And despaired.

But I knocked it back in one season, and three years later, there’s no sign of it. It wasn’t fun, and it wasn’t environmentally friendly, but over the next three posts, I’ll tell you how I did it.

There are several phases to this fight, with this post covering the initial shot(s) across the bow.  Which are:

1. Commitment. With Japanese Knotweed, you have to want it. I had a mantra: “I am smarter and meaner than you, plant, and I am going to win!” Hold on to your mantra, because fleeceflower will make you feel dumb and helpless if you let it.
2. Glyphosate (Round-Up). If this is a midway stop in your research, I can imagine your laughter. Round-Up will not kill it, no. But it’s a good start on weakening it. Spray the bastards with Round-Up to cover every leaf surface, top and bottom. You’re going to want the bigger “tank” size.
3. Patience. WAIT. Seriously. Wait. Round-Up requires the plant to keep going while it gets down into the roots. Wait a couple of weeks. Cackle maniacally from time to time, because the plant has no idea what’s coming for it.

Keep these opening moves in mind, because commitment, chemicals and patience are your arsenal in this siege. In Japanese Knotweed, Part Two, I’ll go over the next tactical stage.