He/I is/am keeping the pony tail palm fairly well isolated from other plants. I'm going to keep an eye on things. The repotting can only help, given the soil it was in before. I haven't gone to a true Al's Gritty Mix, but the new soil is pretty chunky, so that can't hurt. The triangular thing is attached fairly tightly to the caudex. It seems to be part of it. At first, I thought it was wax. I might be able to scrape it off, but I'll wait until it is time to either repot or to deal with any reoccurrence of the original mould/mealies/whatever. I'm pretty sure I got the plant on clearance, so I'm okay taking an observational stance for now. Thanks for all of the suggestions and responses from everyone.

Heh. Michael, if you can remove oxalis from inside your roses with Roundup and not kill the roses, you should be cutting diamonds instead of growing roses. I don't know who you people are, who can use Roundup and not kill or maim something you're trying to save. Every time I touch the stuff there's a mishap. The only thing I can safely spray is poison oak acres away from everything else. Anything else, and it doesn't matter whether I use a tiny paint brush or a sprayer with a cup over the nozzle to direct the overspray, the brush falls on a plant, the dogs knock over the tank, the solution splashes on my goggles, the cup drips, something bad happens. I get the message. I'm doomed.

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.

They are actually edible and dried ones are considered an Asian delicacy. Since they smell pretty gross, it is unlikely small kids or dogs will seek them out, but I wouldn't be overly concerned if they do. As to getting rid of them permanently, that is virtually impossible to do. They are a naturally occurring fungi native to much of the eastern US and will generate from leaf litter, forest debris, wood mulch.....pretty much any decomposing woody plant material. They, like many other fungi, are part of the natural decomposition process. They do tend to be very seasonal, typically appearing in damp weather associated with fall and spring. Cold weather or dry periods will put a stop to their appearance. If they bother you excessively, just rake them away.