On 25/09/2019 11:02, Martin Brown wrote:
On 24/09/2019 14:45, Jeff Layman wrote:
On 24/09/19 13:05, Graeme wrote:
In message , Jeff Layman
writes
On 24/09/19 11:30, Martin Brown wrote:
I
doubt there is much that you can do to them that will stop them
growing.
They are almost indestructible.

That is a crazy suggestion - apart from it being illegal (see my reply
to Jim S). Would you say the same thing if he had been given Japanese
Knotweed?!

The OP *must* not plant them. They need to be destroyed.

That seems a little extreme.Â* The plants are for my own garden, not for
planting out and about in random fields and hedgerows.Â* They came from a
neighbour, who is thinning (not removing) hers and, in 20 years here, I
have never noticed the neighbour's plants spreading outside her garden.

Maybe the Wildlife and Countryside Act doesn't apply to Scotland. Even
so, if you really would like a Crocosmia there are much better
cultivars which are not invasive (according to the breeders).

I have just been to have a look at the nearest place with Montbretia. I
know it was planted in 2007 when the Village Hall patio was completed
and started in a 5" pot. It is so invasive that the clump is now a
whopping 1m across after 12 growing seasons. It was planted through weed
membrane and mulched with plum slate which limits its expansion.

No incursions into the neighbouring field either which is more than can
be said of the snowdrops and daffodils which have spread to the other
side of the fence. A decade is plenty long enough for bulbs from seed to
mature to flowering even in harsh adverse conditions grazed by beast.

FWIW, I took me five years to eradicate Montbretia in our previous
garden - and I had planted it without knowing what would happen! In
our new place which we moved into seven years ago a small patch of it
was already growing. I dug it out, but it came back, so I must have
missed a corm. I removed that, and a small plant appeared the next
year. That plant was removed, and for three years I didn't see it.
This year, it appeared again.

I have never tried to eradicate it. But in another garden where I
sometimes work it can barely hold its own against Lilly of the Valley or
Paeony Rose. I wouldn't class that as invasive compared to Ground Elder.

I'm with Nick - the legislation is appalling. Some of these species are
invasive and a big problem in the mildest parts of the country with the
right soil but some of them are actually well behaved compared to lots
of other potentially invasive plants that are not on the list.

Incidentally on that weeds website where in the UK is goldenrod a
serious weed? I know it causes problem for hayfever sufferers.

It might not be serious round here, but it's more invasive that
montbretia; Solidago gigantea forms large colonies.

And why isn't the toxic to horses Ragwort (aka Senecio Jacobaea) on it?
(that is becoming an increasing problem on grazing land round here)


Ragwort (and broad-leaved dock and curled dock and creeping thistle and
spear thistle) is on another lost - the Weeds Act of 1959.

--
SRH