On 27/04/2012 13:08, Baz wrote:
Janet wrote in
:

In , Bob Hobden
writes
Of that list I do not compost Couch Grass (twitch) as I have seen it
survive composting and ruin a heap by growing through it.
Bindweed can survive so I don't compost that either.


Beechgrove last night warned that you shouldn't put Japanese Knotweed in
the green bin as it's illegal though this might just apply to Scotland.
You have only one recourse, kill it, let it dry and burn it.

Janet, how do you kill it? If it was easy, or even difficult, there would
not be such a commotion about it. From what I have read it cannot be
erradicated. Touch wood and fingers crossed there are no instances of it in
our neck of the woods.

I don't think it is quite as bad as sometimes portayed unless you have a
huge area of it. Then the cost of treatment mounts up rapidly.

It was once grown as a quite pretty ornamental in Victorian gardens and
there was some growing in a largish garden near where I grew up. ISTR
that rosebay willow herb and equisetum was a worse problem there. (weeds
that vary in vigour with soil type/location)

Hit with glyphosate, some other industrial licensed weedkiller and dug
out there is no trace of it now and the land has since been redeveloped.

I don't doubt the stuff is a real nightmare in the wrong place, it does
regrow rapidly from every small piece of rhizome you miss and the new
shoots will penetrate tarmac and thin concrete paths. But it needs to
see light to grow and you can win by attrition eventually.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown