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.

Spring is here, it's finally quit snowing, and time to dig in the dirt! I arm myself with bucket, shovel, clippers, and a handy little three prong digger. Off I go in to the great outdoors! Flower beds! Yes! I need flower beds! Hmmm...previous home owner must have moved some things around, I spy some things coming up in odd spots. No problem, I have digging implements! Dig, dig, shift, shift, mulch, mulch. Ahhhh....the daffodils look much better in a flower bed instead of a foot out into the yard. A nice brick border would look great along that bed as well. Dig, dig. Tug, tug. Scratch, scratch with my three prong digger. Dig some more. Grrrr...what IS this stuff???? Back inside to the handy dandy internet. OMG! O..M..G!!! I have BERMUDA GRASS!!! Horrors!!! Two backbreaking days later, I have the brick border down, and have moved on to the rather pathetic little flower bed out by the corner at the street. Oh Dear Lord, what kind of people lived here before I did? Not only is there bermuda grass growing in that one, it's LOVING the black plastic trash bags they saw fit to put down, and then put several inches of dirt on top. The roots of the bermuda grass have formed a nearly impenetrable mat under the plastic. And because it's plastic, it's doing what they say plastic won't do, breaking down. Bits are sticking up above the dirt. There's holes in it that the grass has grown thru. A nearby tree has woven it's roots in the plastic. Another day of digging with that three prong digger. Scratch the dirt loose, dig out the roots, scratch some more. Easily have dug 20 gallons of bermuda grass out of a flower bed that's about 2' x 3' and I'm not done yet. God bless whoever made that little three prong digger. When I'm buried, I want it with me. Just in case I have to dig thru some bermuda grass.

I've been trying to pare down my "stuff" - and not just my sewing stuff, for the past 2 years - ever since I retired, I've been looking at everything with a more critical eye - maybe just have more time now to get serious about what I want to keep or need - that first summer I donated 17 boxes of just all kinds of things you accumulate over the years, plus my huge 7-ft artificial Christmas tree (some places didn't want it!) an old computor desk, a chair that was my mothers (my brother unloaded it on me, he was one step ahead of me in decluttering, and amazing how you think you should own stuff that you maybe don't even want or need, because of its sentimental value!) the list goes on and on - I don't want my kids to someday have to dig through our house trying to decide about everything we own, and I know one daughter will want to keep everything "because it was Mom and Dad's" (see sentence about "sentimental value") so I'm doing it for them ahead of time. I had a nice little chrome and vinyl chair, box of nice books, 3-4 boxes of this and that out on the porch Thursday for Salvation Army to come pick up - they sorted through it all, and only took about half!!! - left the chair and the books - ??? My neighbor took the chair for her front porch, and the rest of the stuff I'm dispersing here and there in town to charities - it's NOT coming back into my house. I'm much more picky about what I buy now, and accept as freebies - don't need all that I thought I needed or wanted in order to be happy. As my daughter says - "There's a difference between needs and wants". Boy, didn't mean to ramble on about this! (And I do have a box of fabric pieces to donate to a church charity - of course that was one of the boxes S.A. didn't want).

It's easy for a normal consumer to start questioning a design choice or material when everyday, every hour, we are bombarded with "what's new". I am a catalog hound, and I finally realized that if I stopped most of my catalogs, I would be able to calm down the part of my brain that says "oooh I want that".Whether its shoes, or wall art, or countertops, or home fabrics - I know I will be more than content with my already beautiful home if I stop exposing myself to other choices. The Pottery Barn catalog now has color choices from Benjamin Moore; the Napa Style catalog has all the things I need to make my kitchen a warm, loving place for people to gather around my pizza oven, and use all six kinds of my "fun" glassware, while snacking on eleven different types of artichoke spread. They keep showing us stuff we didn't even know that we need! I am definitely a conspicuous consumer - I fall for it all and I buy so many silly things. All I want to do is create a functional kitchen that is easy on the eye now, and at the same time create one that will be easy to live with a long time. I do have to agree with Peacock - it may be easier on the eye and on the budget to make classic decisions. Should you still buy the provencal yellow Lacanche range? Sure, as long as you realize that you will be looking at it and decorating around it as long as you live in that house. Maybe that's part of the problem - so many people in this country move so often that a kitchen re-design is rarely a permanent decision! Interesting thread. Good food for thought. I still want the blue Lacanche though... Mary