It’s considered a noxious weed in most areas, so the “garden police” would be your local county who can fine you in addition to cost for removal on your property anywhere you’ve allowed it to spread. Where I am at it keeps getting spread by flood waters and taking over the entire riparian zone and spreads from there. I would hope people are just trying to troll and aren’t seriously considering planting this intentionally. How about some kuduz while you are at it?

Hi - we managed to get rid of knotweed completely - will tell you how I did it. I'm here because of a BBC article and got me remembering and thinking. I don't understand why everyone says this is so difficult to get rid of it seemed really easy to me anyway. 4 years ago we bought a flat - it had knotweed noted on the survey, it was pretty big area of huge tall weeds, but we haggled the price and bought for cash. Told we wouldn't get a mortgage because of the knotweed. Neighbours told us it was a nightmare they had battled for years and told us all the stories of council officials coming out to look at it and trying to apply for grant funding etc etc to get it dug out with JCB's and burned. Anyway, we decided ourselves to get an estimate from a professional company - priced in the £000's. I did some reading and research about the plant and controlling it. Went to b and q and bought a large quantity of the strongest glyphosate I could find, it said it could treat like 500m/sq. this patch was maybe 20 metres by 5 metres - pretty big for me anyway. It was supposed to be pretty diluted but I only used about 10% water maybe. I also bought a £15 manual spray pump and some gloves and some sponges. I went with some ladders on a Saturday morning in August, it was about 15 degrees C, cloud cover and dry. i coated every single leaf I could with the stuff - several times during the day and again after it dried off or was absorbed. I then found all the thickest stems and bunches and cut them down about halfway, and poured the stuff into the stems - filled right to the top. Then topped them off later that evening - and used the last of the strong spray solution I had made for another final spray coating. Over the next few weeks they starting visibly dying. The winter came and went and by July the following year everything was completely dead. I took plenty of before, during and after photos which I still have. That was 4 years ago I did that and not one single sign of it has returned. It cost me like £80 of materials and maybe 12 hours of my time. I knew nothing whatsoever about Japanese knotweed or plants and gardening and still don't. I was later told that national rail and the local council had actually sent 'a man' every season for 'several years' previous to our buying the place to 'spray the plants' to try and get rid of them. With little success apparently. What I find totally and utterly bizarre is that someone like me, completely clueless about horticulture and plants, was able to completely kill - permanently - a pretty substantial bank of this stuff in like 1 day, with stuff bought from the local hardware shop - and yet the Internet is full of stories and news reports of people spending fortunes and despairing in heartache over it. Was I lucky somehow? Genuinely I've always been curious about this and would welcome input from those more experienced.

Oh, I know about the stilt grass.. Tackling that and the garlic mustard have been all consuming. I moved into my house last fall and have been dealing with years of neglect this past spring and summer. I have no idea what that plant with the white flowers is so I just assumed the worst (knotweed). I'm out currently but will post pics of the other plants when I get home. I have managed to find some beauties in between the weeds like goldenrods, asters, and lance coreopsis growing along the woodland edge (where that pic was taken) so maybe it's another native wildflower? Getting hopeful!

Yeah, it's everywhere. Starting a few years ago, the electric company started coming through and chopping down every tree along the street. They had been really taken to task for their awful response to one of the hurricanes, and their answer is to take down every tree within so many feet of the power lines. It's horrible the way they've absolutely ravaged some streets - and still doing it. Anyway, since they took down soooo many trees, well, guess what popped up in the newly-cleared, very sunny spots? Every weed and most invasives known to man. So you drive down the street and any frontage that isn't specifically a front yard, and even some that are (I live in a rural suburban area so lots of swaths of woods, large wooded side yards, still some farmland - all land that is not "tended") - so all this frontage is at the moment ablaze with japanes knotweed in bloom. It really is discouraging. :) Dee