Love our woods... thanks for that info. No, I've never left any flower heads in my woods nor would I recommend it...I'd bag them as I go or rake them up and bag them immediately after cutting them down. I just suggested whacking them as a quick solution if people think they are about to drop seeds imminently. On a good note, I am pleased to tell you guys that after pulling all our mature GM we had many seedlings last fall which we ran out of time to pull before snow hit. This spring more than half of them never returned. We spread leaf litter a foot deep over the remaining seedlings and have just pulled it away and all the seedlings are gone. So apparently you can smother them or they decay or something because we have none left except for the ones that ARE NOW GROWING IN OUR LAWN!!!!! Grrrrrrrrr! Can you believe it? We got it gone in our woods and now our lawn is full of it. I'm pulling as fast as I can but I'm afraid I'm just going to have to weed'n'feed to get the rest. I just can't keep up with it and obviously mowing is just making it want to grow even stronger and faster. Oh well...I figure this GM problem is not going away, all the lots on each of the 3 sides of me are full of it so I can't expect not to pull it. I'll be pulling it for as long as it exists here in abundance (which it does). I was just saddened to see so very much of it in my lawn now. :o/ Barb Southern Ontario, CANADA Zone 6a

Okay, I will go that route, I have been doing small scale removal at that site by hand and I think the Park service is doing some sort of woodland restoration. Right now I got a lovely back yard woodland garden of Wild Ginger, yellow Trillium, Jack in the pulpit,Wood poppy, wild clombine, bishops cap and solomans seal. I'm trying leaf litter in there now to help establish new plants.

Hi Folks, I just wanted to throw in my $.02 on the subject of controlling Japanese Knotweed. This past week I spent two days removing the knotweed from hill along the side of my driveway. The infestation had been growing for about two years and spreading rapidly. In my case, the hillside that was covered in knotweed also had some plants that I wanted to save- some sugar maples, four varieties of ferns, and some viburnum, so using a foliar spray was out of the question. Instead, I used the "cut stem application" as outlined in this document: http://www.pullman-wa.gov/content/WYSIWYG/Recreation/Japanese%20knotweed.pdf The document recommends cutting the canes between the first and second node and filling the "well" with concentrated herbicide (I chose plain Glyophosphate, you choose your own poison). The document claims this method is 95% effective. Another method involves injecting the plant with herbicide using an injection tool. The upside to this method is that you don't need to dispose of the cut canes. In all, it took me just about two days to clear the hillside. I cut enough canes to completely fill my 8' truck bed two times. I'll keep an eye on the area for the next year or so in case any survivors pop up. -Josh-

Jasdip, These were the other threads. The cookalongs. I know I said tried and true, but this is what I was thinking of...