Invasion in the Yard

Japanese knotweed strikes me as one of those things that's been around since the dinosaurs and would survive atomic explosions.

It is an incredibly beautiful summer day. The humidity is gone, it's lovely and warm, not disgustingly hot outside, so outside seems like the place to be. I have been making many excuses for why I haven't been doing much in the yard - mostly because of the hot and humid weather. Our yard gets direct sun for most of the day but in the morning and then late afternoon are great times to work in the yard, so today, first thing, I headed out to weed. That's where the knotweed comes in. The back quarter of our yard has knotweed sprouting up everywhere. We have dug 3 foot holes tracing roots into the ground, we even resorted to spraying in the hopes that we could stop digging holes in the yard... the ones that get sprayed die but five more grow right up around them. Although I hear there are some benefits to this w

eed, if we were beekeepers or needed a laxative but neither are the case, so we'd like it gone.

Today's activity was to attack this invader.

At the bottom right of the picture you can see how thick the main root is, about 2 inches in diameter. I dug and pulled and threw remnants into the yard waste (because I don't want to risk it in the compost), until the sun crept in and heated up my work area. With that kind of a root, which probably runs across the yard and in to the neighbors yards too I'm not sure we'll ever be rid of this weed, but if I can get out there in the morning and pull it up when it breaks through the top layer of dirt then we should at least be able to control it.

If not, our yard will probably look like this!