Thoughts and news about invasive weeds and The Knotweed Company

Time passes quickly! I was teaching a course today for the PCA on Invasive Trees, Shrubs and Climbers and realised that I will have been working in the invasive plant/weed industry for 40 years in June. I started work aged 15 (nearly 16) at the old Weed Research Institute, working on the rhododendron trials, which were being done for the Forestry Commission. My duties were basic but included assessing re-growth from plants treated in the previous 12 months, hand weeding the nursery beds and also assisting with the application of herbicides to the plants. I loved it!

I've spent the last 40 years learning about invasive plants, identification, control, eradication, means of spread, ecological impacts, etc. and I'm still learning today.

In the last two years, I've identified and implemented more sustainable treatment options for invasive bamboo, found an area of (probably) glyphosate resistant Giant hogweed and have started teaching courses in Invasive Shrubs, Trees and Climbers for the PCA. Not bad for an old 'un!

In the next two years, I've plans to be involved with some very interesting research work on Japanese knotweed and we may by 2025 or 2026 have some serious news to share. Watch this space!

With staff covering all of England and Wales, speak to the professional company about your Japanese knotweed or bamboo or other invasive problems. Contact us on 01327 703129 or 01962 886060, or email us on enquiries@jkweed.co.uk

The Japanese knotweed season has now officially begin. I class this as being when fresh knotweed shoots are taller than me - 6'1"! The growth rate over the last few weeks has been amazing and shoots are still emerging too.

However this does not mean that herbicide control will be effective yet. At the moment all the nutrient flow is upwards from the rhizomes and we need to wait for the flow to reverse and be moving nutrients into the rhizomes before we can effectively spray.

Previously treated stands are of course later to emerge and some of these will not make growth until late summer. Therefore all knotweed inspections/monitoring etc. need to take place in a relatively short window of time.

With staff covering all of England and Wales, speak to the professional company about your Japanese knotweed or bamboo, problems. Contact us on 01327 703129 or 01962 886060, or email us on enquiries@jkweed.co.uk

Invasive bamboos cause many problems, from environment damage in the countryside, to damage to hard surfaces, building damage, neighbour disputes, and loss of amenity. These plants are rhizomatous perennials and can spread up to 7m in each direction in a year.

We at The Knotweed Company have been specialising in bamboo control for many years. Indeed we were the first company to start offering standardised treatment programmes for bamboo. We now offer as standard a unique way of breaking up and mulching the woody rhizomes, crowns and stem bases, which is an environmentally sustainable approach, which minimises the use of herbicides and reduces the waste being removed to landfill. It is also cost effective for our clients!

We like happy customers and we are the UK's leading experts in dealing with invasive bamboos!

With staff covering all of England and Wales, speak to the professional company about your Japanese knotweed or bamboo, problems. Contact us on 01327 703129 or 01962 886060, or email us on enquiries@jkweed.co.uk

Herbicide resistance in weeds is rare, however it is certainly not unknown and some weed species are better at developing resistance than others.

In the current case, we have a stand of Giant hogweed, which we have been treating for 5-6 years now. Initially we had good results from using a glyphosate based herbicide. However this got progressively worse at controlling the plants, and last year we had a thick stand of flowering Giant hogweed - which is unprecedented in my experience for this stage of the treatment programme.

Therefore we sought advice and have changed the herbicide to a different active ingredient. We have informed our client and are doing these works pro bono as it is essential that all the hogweed plants are killed over the next few years.

I will emphasis that resistance has not been confirmed in this instance. However with 40 years of experience in the field, this site is unique in my experience - and worrying.

With staff covering all of England and Wales, speak to the professional company about your Japanese knotweed or bamboo, problems. Contact us on 01327 703129 or 01962 886060, or email us on enquiries@jkweed.co.uk

I started my career in using herbicides in 1983, working at Weed Research Organisation as a summer assistant for Forestry Commission Trials work. I subsquently was one of the first people to take my pesticide application modules in 1988 - the PA1 Foundation and the PA2a Tractor Mounted Hydraulic Nozzle Sprayers.

My certificate for spraying (which is still valid today) is number 13876. One of my colleagues, who recently joined us, has just taken his pesticide application modules and the numbering has now reached over a million.

The Japanese knotweed is well underway now, with good growth being reported from around England, Wales and Scotland. It is of course still too early to treat knotweed, as all the growth is currently upwards from the rhizomes and the herbicide would not be effectively translocated into the rhizomes. Patience is a virtue with knotweed!

Other invasives are also beginning to grow. Giant hogweed for example is growing strongly and can be treated effectively in May. We are also working on bamboo sites and will shortly be commencing Operation Panda to deal with the bamboo treated stumps and rhizomes.

We have also been busy with excavations on construction sites, across London, the midlands and the South coast.

With staff covering all of England and Wales, speak to the professional company about your Japanese knotweed or bamboo, problems. Contact us on 01327 703129 or 01962 886060, or email us on enquiries@jkweed.co.uk

Ten years ago, we were still a young company, specialising in Japanese knotweed and developing our offering. We joined the Property Care Association Invasive Weeds Group, shortly after it was founded (exactly ten years ago) and have played a part in the development of Technicial Notes and the Training Provision.

Today the new RICS guidance for Japanese knotweed comes into effect, it will be interesting to see what changes and what stays the same. Japanese knotweed will be with us for many years to come and I suspect will remain a problem for a long time yet.

A lot has changed in ten years! We still specialise in Japanese knotweed, but also work with many other invasives and lead the industry with our bamboo control programmes. There are many challenges to be met in the current market and opportunities to be grasped.

We live in interesting times!

With staff covering all of England and Wales, speak to the professional company about your Japanese knotweed or bamboo, problems. Contact us on 01327 703129 or 01962 886060, or email us on enquiries@jkweed.co.uk

I failed to meet one of my 2021 resolutions and can't believe that our blog wasn't updated for over 6 months - my sincere apologies! My only excuse is that 2021 was a very busy season for us.

So to sum up 2021 - a bit of a mixed bag. A slow start courtesy of Covid and a late cold spring. After which work went a bit mad! No complaints mind, but we were all a bit shattered by December!

I expect that 2022, will offer more challenges and as ever I will end up learning more about invasive plants. I'm also developing (with the Property Care Association) a training course for Invasive trees, shrubs and climbers, and my colleague, Jim Glaister is doing the same for Invasive Bamboos. More books to come? Quite possibly!

Best wishes for 2022!

With staff covering all of England and Wales, speak to the professional company about your Japanese knotweed or bamboo, problems. Contact us on 01327 703129 or 01962 886060, or email us on enquiries@jkweed.co.uk

I'm sure that it is no surprise to any of our readers that this has been a late spring. With frosts during much of April, any early knotweed growth was rapidly killed off. However although it is still unseasonably cold, it is now warm enough for knotweed to growing vigorously - and it is!

Treated Japanese knotweed stands are often later to emerge in the season, perhaps not emerging until late June, July and sometimes later. Monitoring visits must be done at the right time of year to have any validity, I have heard of contractors doing their monitoring visits in April - a pointless activity at best.

Other weeds have also been slow to emerge and develop, both bamboo and Giant hogweed are behind their normal times, but are not catching up fast.

With staff covering all of England and Wales, speak to the professional company about your Japanese knotweed or bamboo, problems. Contact us on 01327 703129 or 01962 886060, or email us on enquiries@jkweed.co.uk

Are you a fan of bamboo or do you hate it? I think a lot depends on your experiences with this group of plants. I can understand and sympathise with those people that love their bamboo. Who wouldn't like to have tall screens of waving leaves aand stems giving much needed privacy to their garden? Who wouldn't secretly think about pandas munching through the stems? Who wouldn't enjoy the many types of bamboo that exist and the many many variations including coloured stems? However bamboo can have a dark side too...

If you've had a bad experience with bamboo, I can also sympathise. We at The Knotweed Company have seen many many problems with bamboo over the last few years. This typically includes bamboo vigorously invading a neighbour's garden (or even several neighbours' gardens), lifting patios, destroying hard surfaces, causing damage to outhouses, sheds, loss of amenity space and even entering houses and coming up through the floor boards! It's almost impossible to stop a well established running bamboo type and containment measures are rarely installed correctly and in any case need constant maintenance to be effective.

We've been working with invasive bamboos for some years now, and we have authored a book on the subject. If you google 'Invasive Bamboos' it is published by Packard Publishing and can be purchased from their website - https://www.packardpublishing.com/. This contains a wealth of information on selecting bamboos, containment of these plants and the problems that they may cause - as well as what can be done to deal with an invasive bamboo. The book was written by myself, Brian Taylor, my colleague Jim Glaister and Professor Max Wade from Aecom.

We don't claim to know it all when it comes to bamboo, but we did write the book!

With staff covering all of England and Wales, speak to the professional company about your Japanese knotweed or bamboo, problems. Contact us on 01327 703129 or 01962 886060, or email us on enquiries@jkweed.co.uk

Today being the shortest day - the winter solstice - seems like a good time to sum up the year that was 2020.

Firstly it was a strange year from a business perspective! We began the year with high hopes, saw sales and enquiries plummet in February and March, followed by an incredibly busy June to October period. I had the pleasure of seeing the eldest nephew Daniel pass his pesticide application modules and commence work for us for the summer season - plenty more work next year Dan when Uni releases you for the summer! And sadly have lost some of our elderly neighbours and family members this year too. A year of contrasts then, with Christmas coming in a few days time, I am however thankful to see the vaccination programme being rolled out to the elderly with 3 out of 4 of the 'Aged Ps' already having had their first jabs. This is a real hope for the return of normality!

I am excited to report that our book on Invasive Bamboo will be published in January 2021 and this is only the first of several books that we have planned.

So what did I learn writing this book? That bamboo species are posing a direct threat to our ecology and biodiversity now and if we do nothing, then things will get worse very quickly. Also that bamboo poses a great threat to hard surfaces and even well constructed buildings are not immune... some of this i already knew, but even as we were revising the book, more cases came to our attention and several revisions resulted. Finally I learnt an important lesson, to make sure that the draft book, when submitted to the publisher is as complete as it can be - they get very cranky if you make late changes (understandably so!).

Finally, I'd like to wish all our readers a pleasant Christmas and a happier 2021!

It has been a hectic year! We have been very busy since returning to work in June and have been busy servicing our herbicide contracts, taking on new business and developing our services. Since my last post in July (!), we have excavated several areas of bamboo, removed Japanese knotweed from construction sites and treated/monitored/surveyed thousands of sites for Japanese knotweed, Bamboo, Giant hogweed, Montbretia, Himalayan Balsam,Giant knotweed, Hybrid knotweed (Bohemica) and many many more.

However we're not finished yet! We know that there are many of you out there who have Japanese knotweed and are wondering what to do. The season for treating Japanese knotweed is not over yet and we can still take on new works for Japanese knotweed, bamboo, and other invasive weeds.

We're looking forward to speaking to you! With staff covering all of England and Wales, speak to the professional company about your Japanese knotweed, problems. Contact us on 01327 703129 or 01962 886060, or email us on enquiries@jkweed.co.uk

I've had three 'blasts from the past' recently.

Firstly, a site that I'd originally assessed in 2012. A bit of knotweed not too bad. The owner decided to self-treat rather then employ us. Roll on eight years. The owner had been busy with a new venture, hadn't had time to do much about the knotweed. The area was now full of Japanese knotweed, spreading across a boundary, solicitors being briefed... time to call in the professionals. Repeat site visit, updated quotation and works started in a week.

Second site, we commenced works in 2011. Site completed, guaranteed, all OK! Now looking to sell the property and needed an up to date survey and assessment. Order came in for the survey yesterday, was on site within 4 hours, completed survey - all OK, no knotweed found on site.

Third site (and final one) - we commenced works on this site in 2012. Survey and herbicide programme. Client stopped paying us in 2014 (mid-programme), didn't answer his phone or emails. Has now sold the property, knotweed is re-emerging and new owner asked us about the guarantee...

With staff covering all of England and Wales, speak to the professional company about your Japanese knotweed, problems. Contact us on 01327 703129 or 01962 886060, or email us on enquiries@jkweed.co.uk

#japaneseknotweed #knotweedcompany @knotweedcompany #knotweed #expertwitness #solicitor

Personally I didn't go on furlough, someone had to stay at work after all! However things were certainly quiet during April, but picked up during May. We resumed normal work (with furloughed staff returning) on the 1st June 2020 and since then have been hard at work! Lot of quotes, orders and existing contracts to serve.

Since we returned to normalacy, we've seen a lot of bamboo issues and some very large areas of Giant hogweed urgently in need of treatment. We've also seen an increase in Japanese knotweed cases up and down the country. I'm also looking at some Rhododendron works. Nothing like variety!

So we're busy, but still are very pleased to speak to new customers about their invasive plants and weeds. We're hoping to take on a couple of new operatives in the next few weeks and have plans for business development going forward.

With staff covering all of England and Wales, speak to the professional company about your Japanese knotweed, bamboo (and other invasive weed) problems. Contact us on 01327 703129 or 01962 886060, or email us on enquiries@jkweed.co.uk

The big question for ecologists, concerns bamboo. Is this the next Japanese knotweed? We think that it is, in our experience running bamboo is not only an agressive invader, it will also colonise and dominate local ecosystems. It spreads through rhizomes (much like knotweed) and the vigorous growth habits, mean that it outcompetes other plants very successfully. Again like knotweed, bamboo forms large interconnected stands, which may cover hundreds or thousands of square metres - even hectares! It is also very difficult to control as a result.

The Knotweed Company was the first organisation to recognise this threat and to develop management and control strategies. We've been working on both herbicide programmes and excavation strategies for many years now. If you wish to listen to one of our staff discussing this, Jim Glaister is presenting a webinar via the Property Care Association tomorrow morning on bamboo and buddlia.

With staff covering all of England and Wales, speak to the professional company about your Japanese knotweed, bamboo (and other invasive weed) problems. Contact us on 01327 703129 or 01962 886060, or email us on enquiries@jkweed.co.uk

The last few weeks have been perfect growing conditions for Japanese knotweed and it has responded to it well! There are only two plants types in the UK, which can grow outdoors at the speed of 1-3' a week and these are Japanese knotweed (and related plants, such as Giant knotweed, Bohemica knotweed, etc.) and bamboo.

This rate of growth for both bamboo and Japanese knotweed, is only possible because they store energy in their rhizomes and this enables a very rapid and prolonged period of growth during the spring period. Stand back and watch it grow!

The temptation is to attack it now with herbicides. However it is still too early to use herbicides in either Japanese knotweed or bamboo. What is happening at the moment is that all the growth is upwards, so any herbicide applied will stay in the leaves and shoots and not enter the rhizomes - but for control to be effective the herbicide must enter the rhizomes. So you need to wait until there is a flow downwards - typically from June onwards for large established stands and later for smaller or already treated stands. The excellent research work by Dr. Dan Jones has confirmed earlier statements on this matter, by the Environment Agency and herbicide manufacturers.

I have already heard that some contractors (supposedly 'experts') have started treated Japanese knotweed with glyphosate this April. Quite simply this is waste of time and their client's money. I spoke to one such contractor recently and their response? 'Well we know it doesn't work very well, but we don't have much to do in April and it gives us some income.'...

With staff covering all of England and Wales, speak to the professional company about your Japanese knotweed (and other invasive weed) problems. Contact us on 01327 703129 or 01962 886060, or email us on enquiries@jkweed.co.uk

To answer people's emails, yes we are still working - mainly from home - but we are still doing emergency works such as Giant hogweed treatments, which are vital to protect public health. Yesterday I went to South-west London and treated Giant hogweed along the River Crane, we also treat knotweed on the same site (although this is later in the year). Sadly this site is also heavily infested with Himalayan Balsam, Three-cornered garlic (Schedule 9 species) as well as bamboo, Spanish Bluebells and other invasive species.

At this time of year, Japanese knotweed will be growing very fast - perhaps 30-60cm in a week! It is able to do this as it draws upon stored sugars and reserves in the rhizomes and so can produce an amazing spurt of growth. During this time, most of the movement of sucrose is upwards - from the rhizomes into the stems.

The reason that the movement of sucrose is important to the control of Japanese knotweed is that glyphosate (the most effective herbicide) moves with the sucrose in the plant. Therefore applications of glyphosate now, will probably kill off the surface growth, but will not reach the rhizomes.

As I say to people you may as well chop the stems down now rather then spray now - it does about the same job!

We tell our clients to allow it to grow - no chopping, cutting, spraying, digging, etc. then from June onwards we can effectively apply herbicide to the knotweed. Where only a single visit it booked in a year (smaller stands or stands towards the end of their programmes), then this needs to be delayed until mid-July (at the earliest) and completed by late September. We keep rather busy during this period!

With staff covering all of England and Wales, speak to the professional company about your Japanese knotweed (and other invasive weed) problems. Contact us on 01327 703129 or 01962 886060, or email us on enquiries@jkweed.co.uk

We hope everyone is keeping safe and well in these difficult times. I spent most of the weekend, digging in our garden, preparing vegetable beds and removing weeds...a busman's holiday perhaps!

I remember being taught my grandfather, Eddie Wright, how to weed vegetable beds from a very early age - this would have been in my pre-school days and the technology hasn't changed much!

So what do you do if you think you have Japanese knotweed growing in your garden (or on adjoining property?). The answer is simple, you just take a few photos of the suspect weed(s) and email them to us to look at. We can soon tell you if it is knotweed or not! This e-identification service is free to all.

Looking forward to seeing your weed pictures! Email me Brian Taylor at brian@jkweed.co.uk

We have today donated appropriate PPE to our local NHS hospital. We had in stock disposable coveralls (Tyvek classic+ Cat III), which comply with EN14126 Infective agents, we also had facemasks to FFP3 - which are urgently needed.

We gave our donations to Northampton General through Northamptonshire Health Charity - contact Rob Powell on 01604 626927 or email robert.powell@nhcf.co.uk

#supportthenhs #ppeforthenhs #ppe #knotweedcompany @knotweedcompany

This week, the offices are still open, but we are home working. Our phone system was set up with this contingency in mind and all calls should be being automatically diverted. However BT have an exchange problem and our main number 01327 703129 is not currently working. Therefore I must ask all people to either email us or call us on 01327 340770. My apologies for this.

For the next weeks, we will be pleased to answer all your emails, enquiries, etc and also identify Japanese knotweed (and other invasive weeds) through emailed photographs. Please send these to brian@jkweed.co.uk or call 01327 340770. We can also do quotations and make appointments to do full surveys (appointments to be made after the current shutdown period is over).

We look forward to hearing from you!

In the middle of what seems like a deluge of bad news, there is at least one thing to cheer us up. It is nearly spring now and we're already seeing plenty of young shoots, early flowers and the birds are seeking out new nest sites.

In terms of invasive weeds, virtually all of the common invasives are already growing in the Southern part of England and Wales and in sheltered urban areas too. I spent a short time earlier this week looking at several mature knotweed stands in Derbyshire, but although there were a few buds present, there were no shoots showing yet.

Giant hogweed which is normally a bit earlier then Japanese knotweed is already making growth on several of our sites and we'll start treating that soon.

It is however too early to treat Japanese knotweed, with the earliest treatments not normally being made until late May or June, when maximum height has been reached.

With staff covering all of England and Wales, speak to the professional company about your Japanese knotweed (and other invasive weed) problems. Contact us on 01327 703129 or 01962 886060, or email us on enquiries@jkweed.co.uk

Ten years is a long time, but The Knotweed Company came into being 10 years ago today!!!

Since that date, we've dealt with many, many different invasive weeds, we tackle weeds that few others do & have developed protocols to manage new invasive species. We've controlled & eradicated many stands of Japanese knotweed, we've worked with the Property Care Association (PCA) firstly to establish the Invasive Weeds group & then to develop the training and examination process.

We are also planning a few surprises this year, new things happening behind the scenes & new strings being added to our bow!

When tackling the hardest weeds, you need the professionals! #japaneseknotweedsurvey #knotweed #constructionline #estatemanagement #knotweedcompany #propertycareassociation #japaneseknotweederadication #japaneseknotweedconstruction #japaneseknotweedcontrol #invasivespecies

We regularly do invasive weed surveys in the winter. Now Japanese knotweed dies down in the winter, but there still should be plenty of evidence that a specialist surveyor can find on a site, when looking for knotweed. For example crowns, dead canes, even living shoots (in a sheltered spot) and buds. However sometimes all of these will have been removed or may not be present if a herbicide programme has been in place for a while. What do we do then?

At this point, may I introduce my trusty iSpade? My iSpade is based on a late Victorian model and is rated at 1hp (Human Power). I use it to find, locate and assess knotweed rhizomes and to me it is an important tool - quite indispensible in fact!

The reason for my mentioning my iSpade is this. This cheap and to me essential tool has been part of my basic surveying kit for years now. I recently have had occasion to assess (as an Expert Witness) another company's report and from start to finish they did not assess the rhizomes! It was a well treated area of knotweed and they were relying on a purely visual assessment in the winter months... I'm afraid that I was quite critical of their methodology.

With staff covering all of England and Wales, speak to the professional company about your Japanese knotweed (and other invasive weed) problems. Contact us on 01327 703129 or 01962 886060, or email us on enquiries@jkweed.co.uk

In a normal year, we would have been winding down steadily before Christmas, it is an unusual year in that we have been flat out over the last week, surveys, verification visits, construction site projects and Knotweed Management Plans. In addition to this Jim has been examining for this week's CSJK exam for the PCA.

Looking back on 2019, it has been a funny old year, with unexpected quiet spells and then times of frantic activity, I suspect that the political situation (both in this country and elsewhere) has played its part in this.

This week we've been managing a project for a construction company on Guernsey. The current ground conditions both there and on the mainland are dreadful for doing any works, soggy, saturated soils, which are both claggy and less stable - a key consideration for doing any excavation works must be to assess the stability of any excavation...

So what will 2020 bring? We've already got several orders in for early January, for excavation projects, surveys and ongoing treatment programmes. I am also involved with expert witness report writing and am appearing at a court case coming up in January, on behalf of a client. We also have to update our website, arrange training activities for our team and generally prepare for the main knotweed season in 2020. So we hope to keep busy and keep providing a professional service to our clients.

We are closing the offices from later today (Friday 20th December) and re-opening on Thursday 2nd January 2020. In the meantime, I would like to wish all clients, team members and all our readers a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

With staff covering all of England and Wales, speak to the professional company about your Japanese knotweed (and other invasive weed) problems. Contact us on 01327 703129 or 01962 886060, or email us on enquiries@jkweed.co.uk

The season for effective Japanese knotweed treatment varies from year to year. This year the season has already ended in the North and most of the midlands, but green plants are still being found in urban areas in the South and southern midlands. These plants are still treatable, but who knows how much longer the season will last? If you want to book a treatment you need to contact us now!

In the winter months we still carry out Japanese knotweed surveys, verification visits and construction site works, excavating and removing the knotweed from site, or managing the problem on site, perhaps through a cell burial or bund. We also prepare Knotweed Management Plans and other invasive weed Management Plans too.

We are the professional Japanese knotweed company. With experience of working with Japanese knotweed since 2004, you can rest assured that we can deliver results confidently and professionally.

With staff covering all of England and Wales, speak to the professional company about your Japanese knotweed (and other invasive weed) problems. Contact us on 01327 703129 or 01962 886060, or email us on enquiries@jkweed.co.uk

Cold night recently? Well I've had to scrape my car a few times in the last couple of weeks. I know when I have to get the scraper out in the autumn, that the season for Japanese knotweed treatment will soon be ending. This is because knotweed is susceptible to frost damage and the surface growth will start to senesce and die following a hard frost. No green leaves or stems, quite simply means that no treatment can be applied!

Now in the South and in urban areas Japanese knotweed will linger for some time yet, but who knows how long? So if you have Japanese knotweed then you should get in contact with us as soon as possible and book your treatment now before it is too late!

We are the professional Japanese knotweed company. With experience of working with Japanese knotweed since 2004, you can rest assured that we can deliver results confidently and professionally.

With staff covering all of England and Wales, speak to the professional company about your Japanese knotweed (and other invasive weed) problems. Contact us on 01327 703129 or 01962 886060, or email us on enquiries@jkweed.co.uk

I've just been compling an updated CV for an upcoming court case, at which I shall be an expert witness. One of the questions put to me, was 'When did I start working with invasive weeds?'. Now that is a really good question! So when did I start and what was I doing?

The answer is that I commenced works as seasonal labour at the ripe age of 15 years old, working on Forestry Commission Trial works at Weed Research Institution. My job was initially to assess by weighing the current seasons growth made by various trees, shrubs and critically rhododendron (an invasive plant species listed in Schedule 9). This would have been in the summer of 1983. I also assisted in the spray treatments (in the laboratory trial sprayer) of various herbicides on new batches of trees and shrubs. The purpose of this work was to find a herbicide which would control the rhododendron without harming the trees being planted by the Forestry Commission.

I spent the next three summers working at Weed Research Institution, prior to its closing down due to Government cut backs. Sadly almost all the Government institutions that used to do the necessary research works for agriculture and horticulture have been closed and the work simply isn't done now.

So I have personally been working with invasive weeds since 1982, not full time however until 2004, when I moved jobs and started to work full time with Japanese knotweed and other invasives.

I think I can say that I have some experience in the invasive weed sector, but I am still learning!

We are the professional Japanese knotweed company. With experience of working with Japanese knotweed since 2004, you can rest assured that we can deliver results confidently and professionally.

With staff covering all of England and Wales, speak to the professional company about your Japanese knotweed (and other invasive weed) problems. Contact us on 01327 703129 or 01962 886060, or email us on enquiries@jkweed.co.uk

The Hottentot fig is another invasive plant on our radar. It is currently rapidly spreading along the coasts of England & Wales damaging ecosystems as it goes. I've also found it on Guernsey in the last week where is was dominating the area...

It is well known that invasive plants are those not in balance with the local environment and plants such as the Hottentot fig have no natural enemies and so can rapidly spread and dominate the environment. Options for biological control are thought to be limited, and it is not easy to control with herbicides or mechanically.

We are the professional Japanese knotweed company. With experience of working with Japanese knotweed since 2004, you can rest assured that we can deliver results confidently and professionally.

With staff covering all of England and Wales, speak to the professional company about your Japanese knotweed (and other invasive weed) problems. Contact us on 01327 703129 or 01962 886060, or email us on enquiries@jkweed.co.uk

I spent most of the last two weeks, inspecting and treating sites in the midlands and North-east of England. Now a number of these sites are coming to the end of their programmes and in all cases, they needed a detailed and careful inspection to verify that either there was no growth this year or yes there was some bonsai growth still appearing.

Now I can hear people saying, what is so hard about identifying Japanese knotweed? After all it can grow to 3 metres in height, often flowers at this time of year and is quite distinctive.

Well reader, this is the problem, once Japanese knotweed has been treated a few times, it produces chemically distorted shoots, which may look very different from the untreated normal growth. We call this 'bonsai' growth and this type of growth may persist for a few seasons.

The real problem is this. Most people can't identify bonsai growth. So if you have a guarantee in place for your knotweed and you think that there isn't any growth you may want to look at our identification guide on how to identify bonsai growth - apparently we are the only people providing this information, but then we are one of the few contractors that inspects their contracts during the guarantee periods - the two facts may not be unrelated!

We are the professional Japanese knotweed company. With experience of working with Japanese knotweed since 2004, you can rest assured that we can deliver results confidently and professionally.

With staff covering all of England and Wales, speak to the professional company about your Japanese knotweed (and other invasive weed) problems. Contact us on 01327 703129 or 01962 886060, or email us on enquiries@jkweed.co.uk

We don't just treat Japanese knotweed infestations, we also treat the full range of Schedule 9 plants and other 'problem plants'. In the last week, I did a survey for a house in Northamptonshire, which had not one, not two, but five plants from the Schedule 9 list (Wildlife and Countryside Act, 1981) and it had another two plants of concern...

Now not every Schedule 9 plant is a problem, it depends on location and situation. In this case three of the five Schedule 9 plants, didn't present a problem to the landowner and of the other two plants, only one needed action in our view. So three plants will need action plans on this property.

As always the question is when is a weed a weed, when is an ornamental plant merely that? The answer and has to be that you need correct identification, an assessment of the location, the situation and this will include an assessment of the potential to cause problems. There are some easy answers for some plants, who could justify keeping Giant hogweed for instance? Or Japanese knotweed? However running bamboo is another issue, in one location control may be simple and it may kept in bounds, in other locations this is not possible and in this instance it may become a nuisance to ones neighbours and the surrounding environment. Food for thought!

We are the professional Japanese knotweed company. With experience of working with Japanese knotweed since 2004, you can rest assured that we can deliver results confidently and professionally.

With staff covering all of England and Wales, speak to the professional company about your Japanese knotweed (and other invasive weed) problems. Contact us on 01327 703129 or 01962 886060, or email us on enquiries@jkweed.co.uk

I spent three happy summers working at the Weed Research Institute in the early 1980s, before it closed. I never would have thought that 36 years later, I would still be working with weeds - and loving it! Always something new to learn and always taking something from each day, good and bad.

Some things never change, we are still having to deal with rhododendrons, Giant hogweed and of course Japanese knotweed. Other things do change, we have so few herbicides remaining to deal with these weeds - only 2-3 effective products. So what could we do if we lost these products? Learn to live with the invasive weeds? Abandon as uneconomic to remediate whole areas of our towns and countryside? While it may be possible to control and eradicate some weeds without using herbicides, the reality is that the costs and efficacy of doing without herbicides are much, much higher and the fossil fuel usage increases enormously.

So what else is new? Well we are seeing new invasive weeds, such as bamboo - the latest 'thug' on the block. While we know who to 'thank' for introducing Japanese knotweed - Philipp van Siebold - it is less clear who should be 'thanked' for introducing the several species of bamboo that are causing so many issues at the moment. However the BBC Groundforce programme were certainly regularly pushing bamboo as a planted screen in urban gardens in the 1990s, such screens are still being planted and are still causing major issues in people gardens (and their neighbours and neighbour's neighbours...).

So what is the organic solution to all these invasive weeds? Dear reader there isn't an organic solution for invasive weeds. We are contracted to work on a number of organic farms to treat areas of their land, which have been infested with invasive weeds. They have to obtain a derogation for this and the area of land affected needs to be segregated from the rest of the farm.

We are the professional Japanese knotweed company. With experience of working with Japanese knotweed since 2004, you can rest assured that we can deliver results confidently and professionally.

With staff covering all of England and Wales, speak to the professional company about your Japanese knotweed (and other invasive weed) problems. Contact us on 01327 703129 or 01962 886060, or email us on enquiries@jkweed.co.uk

It is well known that Japanese knotweed can lie dormant for many years - even decades. The mechanisms for this are various and complicated, critically they are poorly understood by many people - even those working in the knotweed industry. This means that poorly treated knotweed may often enter dormancy and the client may be fooled into believing that the knotweed is dead, when it is only sleeping.

Now this is not the place for a scientific paper! Different herbicides have different ways of inducing dormancy, residual herbicides (such as Tordon) create a chemical barrier in the soil, which might persist for many years, translocated herbicides such as glyphosate act in a different way, but essentially are moved in the plant with sucrose, so when a new knotweed bud forms, this acts as a sucrose sink, attracts glyphosate and then dies - end result no growth!

However whether a residual or translocated herbicide are used, eventually the chemical breaks down or is used in killing new buds. The knotweed will then re-grow, often with distorted growth due to sub-lethal levels of whatever herbicide remains - we call this 'bonsai' growth or chemically distorted.

The only sure way to find out what is actually happening to the knotweed is to excavate (by spade or mechanical excavator) and assess the rhizomes. This is critical for any development site and should always be part of the Knotweed Management Plan.

We are the professional Japanese knotweed company. With experience of working with Japanese knotweed since 2004, you can rest assured that we can deliver results confidently and professionally.

With staff covering all of England and Wales, speak to the professional company about your Japanese knotweed (and other invasive weed) problems. Contact us on 01327 703129 or 01962 886060, or email us on enquiries@jkweed.co.uk

We recently completed a small excavation project, removing a stand of Japanese knotweed that was stopping a cycle path from being completed in Leyton. As a manager it is important to understand that a small project can be as complex and hazardous as a larger one. There is a tempation to simply think, this is a small simple project, don't overthink it. Wrong!

We've been working in this field for a long time now and have completed all necessary and advisory training for our operational staff. So our initial survey identified the hazards and logged them and our remediation plan took these into account.

The main hazards that we identified included traffic and pedestrians on the adjoining road and linear park, the risk of services being present underground and the issues of managing works in a busy urban environment.

Now this means a fair amount of preliminary works need to take place before works can commence. The Operational Manager has to not only identify the hazards, but also identify a safe working method for the operational staff and correctly resource it with trained staff. Seems obvious? Well it is to us - that's why we're the Knotweed professionals!

We are the professional Japanese knotweed company.

With staff covering all of England and Wales, speak to the professional company about your Japanese knotweed (and other invasive weed) problems. Contact us on 01327 703129 or 01962 886060, or email us on enquiries@jkweed.co.uk

Giant hogweed has been increasing in number and spread over the last few years. We are now findng large stands with hundreds or thousands of plants in dense colonies across the country.

Giant hogweed typically grows between 2-5 metres in height (at the flowering stage), with flower heads between 500-1000mm across. It is a short lived perennial, developing from a small plant in years 1 & 2 to a large flowering mature plant in later years - after which the plant sets thousands of seeds and dies.

The danger to humans comes from the Giant hogweed sap, which removes our skin's natural protection against sunlight. Exposure to sunlight will then result in blistering and burning, the affected parts may also swell and become inflamed. This is not a short term mature and the skin may need protecting from sunlight for many months or longer.

Treatment should always be carried out by trained professionals. Sadly too many people see a problem and decide to remove the giant hogweed by slashing, brushcutting, etc. This spreads the toxic sap as a fine mist and a visit to A&E is the usual result. Be warned, if the toxic sap gets into your eyes, then permanent blindness could result, the sap can also a known mutagen and pregnant women should avoid contact with this plant.

We are the professional Japanese knotweed company.

With staff covering all of England and Wales, speak to the professional company about your Japanese knotweed (and other invasive weed) problems. Contact us on 01327 703129 or 01962 886060, or email us on enquiries@jkweed.co.uk

We're very pleased to be able to welcome you to our new website. The old one had been good in its day, but things move on in 8 years and despite updates the old site was definitely a little dated!

So as of now, our website is reborn and this fits in with the growing season for Japanese knotweed, which is well under way now. The mature untreated stands of knotweed are over 2 metres now across the country and are still actively growing. Stands are also increasing in size at the moment, and if you look closely you will see new shoots emerging around the edge of the stands – soon to be as tall as the middle and so the stand increases in size from year to year.

We are busy now with practical works, including excavations, spraying programmes and property surveys. We have staff travelling around England and Wales and are almost certainly already working in your area!

We are the professional Japanese knotweed company.

With staff covering all of England and Wales, speak to the professional company about your Japanese knotweed (and other invasive weed) problems. Contact us on 01327 703129 or 01962 886060, or email us on enquiries@jkweed.co.uk

We've been working on a new website for our company for the last few months and will be unveiling it in the next few weeks. We hope that you will like the new website as much as we do! We've had a busy few weeks recently, and are now getting into the really busy season with surveys being completed throughout England and Wales and treatment programmes about to start. We've recently been involved with two development projects in Guernsey and expect to be returning there soon for another site inspection. We are the professional Japanese knotweed company and can help you with your knotweed problems! With staff covering all of England and Wales, speak to the professional company about your Japanese knotweed (and other invasive weed) problems. Contact us on 01327 703129 or 01962 886060, or email us on enquiries@jkweed.co.uk.

Today on our Facebook page we're looking at Himalayan knotweed. This closely related species to both Japanese and Giant knotweed is not itself (yet) on the Schedule 9 list, however it is spreading rapidly in the wild and also hybridises with both Japanese and Giant knotweed...

The Knotweed Company continues to have an excellent track record of submitting Knotweed Management Plans to mortgage companies and enabling house sales and purchases to proceed. We would never claim to have a 100% track record in this field, but (when considering the larger high street lenders), we think the last such rejection was over three years ago – and when the purchaser went to a different lender the mortgage was immediately approved!

Our surveys and management plans have had a lot of positive feedback over the years, typically our reports are clear and easily understandable and we have a range of solutions that we can call upon. Our typical herbicide programme is cost effective and we offer active monitoring for any extended guarantee period. Insurance backed guarantees are of course available and different products can be costed and discussed.

We also offer verification visits, where the presence of Japanese knotweed is suspected and prepare Knotweed Management Plans. We can also assess sites where knotweed has been found by a new owner and can assess whether or not this is a new infestation or one that may have been concealed.

We have professionally qualified Japanese knotweed surveyors located around the country and clients from Newcastle-upon-Tyne to Penzance and Anglesey to Dover. We are regularly in South Wales, the West Midlands and along the South Coast.

We are the professional Japanese knotweed company.

The end of the spray season is now upon us for much of the country. While spraying Japanese knotweed may still be effective for another 1-2 weeks (perhaps longer in urban areas) the recent hard frosts will cause rapid senescence and the plants will be dying back above ground, while moving all the stored sugars into their crowns and rhizomes for future use. During this short period, herbicide sprays may still be usefully made to green tissue (stems and leaves) and the herbicide is then transported into the rhizomes along with the sugars, where it will be effective in future seasons.

Halloween is also known as the day of the dead. It is worth remembering that although Japanese knotweed will look dead above ground in the winter, it is still very much alive and in spring it will return…

If you still have untreated Japanese knotweed you need to order your treatment urgently. We have availability to offer treatments for the next few weeks, so why not call the professionals now?

We are the professional Japanese knotweed company.

We compete on price and service – this is common to all the private sector. However what does this actually mean during the guarantee period?

A lot of Japanese knotweed contractors do not monitor during their guarantee periods, quite simply they rely on you, the customer to be able to identify Japanese knotweed at an early stage of growth – perhaps distorted into ‘bonsai’ growth habits by the use of herbicides – and they then ask that you contact them, and they will attend site and treat it. However many of these have clauses, in which the guarantee will be voided if the customer fails to identify the growth when small. How confident are you at identifying bonsai knotweed – perhaps only a few millimetres high and heavily distorted? Also if you get your identification wrong – they will charge you for the visit.

The Knotweed Company however is different, we actively monitor our sites during the guarantee period and use qualified technicians and surveyors to check for any growth. In doing so, we can identify any issues on site and deal with them promptly. It is the difference between knowing that you are still knotweed free and hoping that you are…

We are the professional Japanese knotweed company.

I am not the most patient of men, and get irritated fairly quickly by rudeness, slackness or by incompetence. Equally however I praise and appreciate the competent and polite people and always try to be professional in my dealings with other people.

There are many excellent Japanese knotweed companies out there and I hope that I’m never too proud to learn something new. I'm always interested to learn from others and also am prepared to offer help when asked.

I did get very annoyed earlier today and found it truly outrageous when a supposedly ‘leading company for Japanese knotweed’ produce a poor report for a customer. To begin with, several pages of the (short) report are only there to say how good they are and what a wonderful job they will be doing – what a pity then that these pages of self-important standardized puff contain a number of spelling and grammatical mistakes!

As for the report itself, a vague green blob supposedly marks the Japanese knotweed location and is almost in the correct location – it tries but alas misses by a metre or two… a fairly crucial thing to get right in a Japanese knotweed survey you would think?

Finally their surveyor produces some vague waffle about RICS categories and (amazingly) gets the category right, but for the wrong reasons…there was however no detail about the previous treatments or indeed about the ongoing programme – nothing at all.

A poor attempt at a report – I would grade it as an E- – needs completely re-writing.

If you find my rantings about written style and accuracy interesting, it is because I am the son of a primary school teacher and a research scientist – it was drummed into me from an early age that writing is an important and accurate means of communication. We try to offer well written reports, which are accurate, concise and fit for purpose. We’ve never had any issues with mortgage companies or surveyors about our reports (and indeed have received many compliments from solicitors, mortgage companies, surveyors and our clients).

We don’t brag about how good we are – we’d rather let our customers decide for themselves.

We are the professional Japanese knotweed company.

Unfortunately our Email server (Easily.co.uk) has let us badly down this week due to a technical upgrade and my old email addresses are not currently working.

All of our other emails are working, the problem is only for my email addresses which are brian@jkweed.co.uk and brian@knotweed-removal.co.uk.

I have now set up a new email address as my main works emails which is brian.taylor@jkweed.co.uk. I hope in due course that my old work emails will automatically divert to my new email.

My apologies for any inconvenience.

Brian Taylor

In a landmark ruling, the Court of Appeal has today decided that the presence of encroaching Japanese knotweed rhizomes (across the boundary) would in the opinion of the court be sufficient to prove that an interference with the owner’s right to peaceful enjoyment of their property had occurred and damages might be claimable. This does not enable homeowners to claim for loss of value of their property, however it does enable damages to be claimed. This case came about as Network Rail failed to treat their knotweed over many years (perhaps decades), and so caused a major impact upon their neighbours.

This judgement will in our view change many people’s and organisations views on the importance of properly dealing with their Japanese knotweed problem. Whether you are a landlord, a home owner, a company or other organisation, you will need to address your knotweed problem. Allowing knotweed to spread onto neighbouring land is no longer an option, as you may be held accountable for your neglect in a court of law.

While we cannot time travel and prevent you getting Japanese knotweed in the first place, we can start an effective and professional eradication strategy quickly and in so doing reduce the risk that a legal claim can be made or minimise the damage. If Network Rail had taken effective action, when their neighbours first complained to them, this case may have had a different result.

We can offer professional surveys, proper eradication programmes (with costs spread over the eradication period), long term monitoring and insurance products (if needed). Our staff are qualified, trained, experienced and professional. We use discreet vehicles (no sign writing – would you want to advertise the fact that you have Japanese knotweed?).

Our eradication programmes are cost effective and effective. We do not offer unsubstantiated herbicide programmes, and we also provide expert monitoring during the guarantee period. We are professionals and proud to lead our industry.

The Knotweed Company won a prestigious honour at the annual Property Care Association awards ceremony a couple of weeks ago. We overcame a record number of entries to secure the Project of the Year title.

The winning project was for an old mine-working site in Camborne, Cornwall, that had been green-lit for development, but had laid empty for over 20 years due to significant contamination issues. Among the problems presented to developers was a massive Japanese knotweed infestation that had been worsened due to substantial soil movement and soil importation over the years.

We proposed a revolutionary approach to remediate the site by a combined use of consolidation, installation of root barriers and extensive monitoring and treatment. We approached the Environment Agency with our Knotweed Management Plan and received their approval. As a result of our proposal, our client was able to make substantial financial savings and a once untenable site became financially viable for development.

The good thing about having been a professional Japanese knotweed eradicator for over ten years, is that you never stop learning. When I started working (exclusively) with knotweed in 2004, little was known about the long term eradication of knotweed. Jim Glaister and I started working together in 2004 and between us we tried and tested many methods of eradication and critically reviewed what we were doing and how we could improve our methods. This is still an ongoing process!

Occasionally, we were perplexed as to how competitors were able to offer ‘Guaranteed eradication in 12 months’. One company (who I will refer to as ABC) made a huge splash about how they were the experts that could work this miracle and offer a five year guarantee. No reputable person in the industry could understand this, as they seemed to be able to make it work. However the world of Japanese knotweed is a small one and eventually you meet someone that will (after a beer or two) talk.

ABC was apparently using high doses of a residual herbicide (now no longer available), in the first year – we all knew this and also knew it wouldn’t eradicate the knotweed, merely suppress it. What they were then doing (I have been told) was entering sites (including construction sites, etc.) when no-one was on site and re-treating the areas in subsequent years, so that no re-growth would occur. This breached Health and Safety, could be defined as trespass and possibly even as fraud. Needless to say some clients found out and fired this company. Re-growth of the knotweed would have occurred on most sites by now as residual herbicide will only suppress the knotweed for a few years.

ABC is no longer trading but the phoenix descendent is still out there…

Giant hogweed is now flowering throughout the country. This is the most dangerous time of the year, to get the sap on your skin as the combination of strong sun light and the sap from the plant can result in severe burning and blistering.

It is however important to get this weed treated professionally. Please do not panic and chop it all down, that can be very dangerous to do. This weed needs to be treated with an appropriate herbicide, which will safely kill the plant and the tap root or carefully removed if there is no other option.

We have been seeing an increase in Giant hogweed infestations on the last few years. This is usually because people do not take action as soon as they see the first signs of an infestation (and flowering umbels 5 metres high are fairly obvious to most people). We are seeing some very large affected areas (hundreds if not thousands of square metres). This is not only potentially hazardous, but can also affect offering of mortgages on the affected properties, finally invasive weeds are detrimental to the environment.

The word ‘experts’ or ‘specialists’ in the Japanese knotweed industry has a long history of being misused by companies or people. These terms may be used by credible companies, but often are not. When I see a new Japanese knotweed company advertising, I often check their website out. Sometimes I find that our photographs have been stolen from our website and used without permission; sometimes I find a good informative website and sometimes I find shockingly bad ones!

I’ve found one shocker recently. According to their website they specialise in difficult weeds such as Japanese knotweed, but critically some of the photographs that they show which are supposed to be Japanese knotweed – are not! They actually show photographs of Russian Vine - a completely different plant and then you read their totally inaccurate description of knotweed winter canes being tough and hard to cut (actually they are fragile, flimsy canes, easily broken) – were they thinking of bamboo canes?

We call ourselves professionals, we are qualified and experienced in the invasive weed sector. Critically we’ve been working in this field for 14+ years (exclusively with Japanese knotweed and other invasive weeds); before that I was treating invasive weeds as part of my overall management duties, so I can claim to have more than 2 decades worth of experience – and I am not the only one in the company that can (nearly) claim that!

If you are looking for an expert – speak to the professionals, we are competent and experienced at our job.

The Property Care Association (PCA) of which we have been members since early 2013, developed a rigorous training and examination process for technicians and surveyors in the invasive weed industry. We are proud to say that Jim Glaister and I (Brian Taylor) were also able to contribute quite extensively to the process.

Every contractor and consultant member of the PCA invasive weed group should now have at least one person qualified to the CSJK standard and soon every surveyor should be qualified.

The Knotweed Company always seeks to lead the field with their expertise and training. All of our surveyors are qualified and hold the CSJK. Our latest candidate to sit the examination – Aaron Way – has now been told that he has passed his examination and is entitled to put the letters CSJK after his name. He joins our group of surveyors which includes: Brian Taylor, Jim Glaister, Paul Copper, Kevin Gilderson and now Aaron Way. I think that we employ more qualified surveyors than any other company in the United Kingdom.

The CSJK is a tough examination with a high failure rate – it combines a written essay examination, a practical identification test and a final viva before two experienced surveyors.

Prior to the examination process, any one could set up a business and call themselves ‘experts in Japanese knotweed’. I can remember speaking to some of these so called ‘experts’ who couldn’t identify Japanese knotweed (this is no joke).

If you are looking for an expert – speak to the professionals and make sure that your surveyor is qualified to the CSJK standard.

We are experienced in dealing with all sorts of invasive weeds, from Giant Butterbur to Knotweed hybrids, we can handle it.

However there is one group of plants, which still has the power to amaze me – these are the bamboos. Bamboos spread by underground stems – rhizomes – they can destroy hard surfaces, ruin neighbours gardens and are hard to kill and control. Sounds familiar? Yes they are very similar to Japanese knotweed! However they are also a woody species and really hard to dig up or to cut down.

A few fun facts about bamboo:

Bamboo can grow up to 35 metres high. Yes 35 metres. Now most bamboos in this country don’t reach that height… typically a maximum height of 20 metres… but in your garden?

The shoots (culms) reach their full height in the first growing season, typically taking 3-4 months to do this. The culms then remain alive for some years, creating sugars by photosynthesis and passing this to the rhizomes to make more culms…

A new culm might grow up to 1 metre in a day…

Plant bamboo as a screen and quite often they will simply spread into your neighbour’s garden as well – please note that they may not too pleased about this! Also if you’ve planted a tall bamboo, neither you nor your neighbour will get to enjoy the sunshine very much.

Bamboo has a definite life expectancy and often reaches flowering point (after years or decades) and then may die after seeding. Rats love the seed by the way!

Most bamboos (in my experience) are not suitable for planting in your average garden. They are very hard to successfully contain with root barriers (bamboo rhizomes can grow over the top or angle down below the barrier) and other methods require a lot of constant monitoring and work. Bamboos are generally speaking not happy to be planted in containers and will happily send roots out of the bottom of the container…

Bamboos are fairly cheap to buy - however if I may advise you - they can be very expensive to get rid of once established and can cause significant neighbour issues.

We’ve been eradicating bamboo for years. We have a successful track record of dealing with problematic bamboo issues.

Today a number of media outlets are promoting a scary message, which is basically saying that Japanese knotweed can never be eradicated.

Behind the scary headlines, is an excellent research paper titled ‘Optimising physiochemical control of invasive Japanese knotweed’ (Jones et al, 2018). In this paper, the researchers have found that summer and autumn applications of glyphosate based herbicide offer the best control; furthermore control programmes have to last for many years – longer than the experimental work has so far lasted.

This research work confirms many of my views and should not be a surprise to anyone in the industry. I strongly recommend reading the paper to anyone who is truly interested in the subject.

So back to Japanese knotweed - can you eradicate it with herbicides? Yes you can.

However it typically takes many years to do this. Yesterday I finally signed off three sites in South-west London which started their eradication programme in 2006 and 2007. They completed their monitoring period (minimum 2 years) late last year. Other sites (much larger infestations) for the same client started in 2005 and are still making growth as of last year.

The Knotweed Company has been treating Japanese knotweed for years. We can provide suitable eradication and control programmes for all types of properties or situations – it does however take a few years!

The recent warmer weather has encouraged the Giant hogweed to start growing. It is not yet in flower, but it soon will be in the South of the country. This deadly plant can burn you, causing permanent scarring, blindness, death and can even cause mutations in a foetus.

Giant hogweed is not a joke or a late April fool. It is real and out there. We treat this plant – large and small infestations up and down the country. There are large infestations all over the country and we treat this weed all over England and Wales. We see it in people’s gardens, on river banks and in schools. Unbelievably we’ve found Giant hogweed in toddlers play areas in schools.

The treatment period for Giant hogweed is very limited and it starts now and end by late July. We have a window of perhaps 12 weeks to kill this year’s giant hogweed before seeds are set and millions of seeds are scattered across the soil, being spread by streams, rivers and on vehicle tracks.

So why is it that we hear so little (comparatively) about this weed? In the last few years, we’ve heard some stories, when children have received burns by playing in and amongst the Giant hogweed. We’ve heard less about the adults who’ve tried chopping it down (which is a very bad idea indeed) and the treatment that they’ve needed at their local hospital.

This is a weed where you need the professionals. We can provide suitable eradication programmes for all types of properties or situations.

This weekend I expect to be gardening for at least some of the time, as are many people. This weekend, many people will see the purple green stems of Japanese knotweed emerging from the soil, from under paving slabs and concrete or perhaps behind the garden shed or garage….

If you are in this position, the first thing to do is not to panic. If you think it is Japanese knotweed, than email us with a photograph or two and we will try to confirm or not whether it is knotweed. This is even a free service! If it is confirmed as Japanese knotweed, than we can offer several ways forward, from a survey by a qualified person to providing a cost effective treatment programme.

We offer programmes which are flexible and adaptable to your needs. This includes programmes which are ‘pay as you go’ as opposed to some companies where you pay for the 5-6 year programme in one lump sum up front – which I find a little strange – how many services over 5-6 years do you pay for upfront? Window cleaning? Bin cleaning? So why should Japanese knotweed be different?

We can also provide suitable eradication programmes for properties for sale, including programmes which comply with most of the larger mortgage company’s requirements.

Japanese knotweed is growing now – so it’s a good time to call us!

Rumour has it that spring is coming next week. It is quite hard to believe that here we are at the Ides of April and when I look out of the office window the trees are bare and the grass is barely growing yet.

If the forecasters are correct and we are going to see rapidly warming temperatures from next week, than Japanese knotweed watchers will be in for a treat, as the growth rate that the knotweed will make this spring will be amazing to see. One foot of new growth (305 mm) a week is often quoted, but in the right conditions it can exceed that!

Although it is hard to imagine right now, Japanese knotweed will almost certainly exceed 2 metres in height (untreated mature stands) by the end of May. Assuming that there is currently only buds showing today and that it will take a few days to start growing it will do all this growth in 5-6 weeks and reach a height by the end of May of 7-8 feet (2m+). Full height of the Japanese knotweed will be reached around the end of June, after which new shoots will continue to emerge around the mature stand area.

We’re already booking surveys and receiving orders for treatment programmes and are able to provide suitable management plans for dealing with your Japanese knotweed or other invasive weeds. So why not call us?

One of our surveyors, Paul Copper, reported that he had found untreated Japanese knotweed shoots on a site in Southern England last week. A sheltered spot and 2-3 shoots were growing (about 100mm or 4” for those of us that remember (vaguely in my case!) £ s d).

The slowly warming soil temperatures will now mean that all the invasive weeds will start growing. Giant hogweed will be the first to awaken and in sheltered spots will soon need treating. Japanese knotweed will need leaving for a while before treatments can commence, we normally like to leave it until mid-May at the earliest (if previously untreated) and later if possible.

We are still able to undertake winter stem clearance work, this window of opportunity is however fast disappearing and will be gone in the next few weeks.

We’re already booking surveys and receiving orders for treatment programmes and are able to provide suitable management plans for dealing with your Japanese knotweed or other invasive weeds. So why not call us?

Not much appears to have changed in the last few weeks. Snow and ice still cover much of the country and Japanese knotweed is still fast asleep for the winter. I suspect that when the weather warms up a bit, the invasive weeds will rapidly make up for lost time and we’ll be spraying Giant hogweed in 3-4 weeks’ time and Japanese knotweed by early May.

Needless to say we’re still keeping very busy and my desk is still in its usual state...

We’ve just taken delivery of some new iPhones for most of the team and I’m helping them set these up (quicker to batch do them, as opposed to everyone struggling on their own). Technology has certainly moved on from when I started work… fortunately I’ve kept up with it (mostly!).

We’re already booking surveys and receiving orders for treatment programmes and are able to provide suitable management plans for dealing with your Japanese knotweed or other invasive weeds. So why not call us?

At the time of writing Japanese knotweed is still quiet and resting under a blanket of snow and frost. However it is not dead, it is only sleeping and in the mid to late spring, will start to make its annual growth. Whatever you think about knotweed, it has an amazing spurt of growth in spring, when it uses the stored energy from the rhizomes and reaches a full height of 3-4 metres in a few weeks.

We’re keeping busy both in the office and on the ground. We are currently involved with projects from Camborne in Cornwall to Malvern, several sites in the South-east, the midlands and into South Wales. Next week we have a mini-excavation booked in East Anglia and other works including surveys. Japanese knotweed may be asleep, but we’re not!

We’re already booking surveys and receiving orders for treatment programmes and are able to provide suitable management plans for dealing with your Japanese knotweed or other invasive weeds. So why not call us?

Japanese knotweed is a funny plant and can easily enter dormancy – either wholly or partly. The reasons for it entering dormancy are not well understood, but include herbicide treatment, burial, covering with a barrier or covering with concrete. Basically anything which stops the plant from growing normally has the potential for it to enter dormancy and this dormancy may last years or even decades.

I’ve recently had a discussion with a pesticide manufacturer and we believe that we’ve identified one possible mechanism for inducing apparent dormancy in Japanese knotweed and possibly a few of the key issues that we have to deal with in treating knotweed. This discussion may lead to some experimental work being undertaken – however this will be a long project and results may take years to reliably assess. However this work needs to be done and there is a need for continued research in this area to follow on from the excellent field trials carried out by Dr Dan Jones during his studies at Swansea University.

This week, I’ve assessed a number of sites, including one in which Japanese knotweed has apparently been lying dormant for nearly 30 years. The rhizome which I examined was large (circa 80mm+ diameter) and was still alive, although it was a deeper orange colour than would normally be expected. Possibly this knotweed was treated many years ago with a residual herbicide, which might explain the long dormant period and the discolouration.

We’re already booking surveys and receiving orders for treatment programmes and are able to provide suitable management plans for dealing with your Japanese knotweed or other invasive weeds. So why not call us?

A better week for us this week, with a full house of staff back at work. We’re still having to shuffle some works around as there has been an impact on our planned works – so my apologies to anyone affected. We do try to give reasonable notice when this happens, but it can be difficult. We should be back to normal soon.

We’ve had a week dealing (almost exclusively) with bamboo. Hence my enquiry about if there any hungry pandas around who would like a good meal. At this time of year, we cut the bamboo down and inject the stumps with a glyphosate based herbicide. This is a reasonably effective way of treating bamboo (it will still need a number of follow up visits over the next few years to eradicate it though). This however leaves us with a large amount of bamboo… needless to say we do our best to re-use the material and my father has already laid claim to a few bamboo canes for his runner beans.

This week we’ve been shredding a lot of bamboo on a site in Hampshire, which will reduce the volume considerably and also allow it to decompose more quickly. By treating it in this way we are reducing off site waste and also adding to the local environment. A lot of insects and arthropods will set up home in a pile of woody waste such as this and this will in turn provide food for other animals and birds. After a year or so the material will have broken down and will add to the soils fertility.

So where has all this bamboo come from? Well those of us with a long memory remember the 1990s gardening programmes, many of which promoted the use of bamboo as a living screen in suburban gardens. They also used to mention (casually if I recall) that you needed to use a root barrier to stop it from spreading, what they didn’t say was that bamboo can grow over any root barrier and needs constant management to stop it from spreading.

When Japanese knotweed was first introduced (1850s onwards), it was marketed as being a tall screening plant, minimal maintenance, etc. Which is basically what was being said about bamboo in the 1990s. Japanese knotweed spreads by underground stems (rhizomes), would you like to guess how bamboo spreads? Japanese knotweed can destroy hard surfaces – as can bamboo. We’re still in the early days of the ‘great bamboo infestation’, it will be interesting for those of us working in the industry of invasive weeds to see what happens next. Either the problem will be contained or it will enter the next phase of invasive behaviour and establish itself in the wild.

We’re already booking surveys and receiving orders for treatment programmes and are able to provide suitable management plans for dealing with your Japanese knotweed or other invasive weeds. So why not call us?

On the bright side, I haven’t succumbed yet to the dreaded seasonal flu. I suspect it is only a matter of time however...

It appears that nearly everyone around me this week has fallen ill with the dreaded flu in the last two weeks. My wife was ill last week and is still recovering and no less than four staff members are off this week – three with the flu and one on leave (he had the flu two weeks earlier!). This is quite remarkable as our staffing arrangements mean that we don’t actually all meet face to face that often, since before Christmas in fact.

So I must ask all our customers to have patience with us, if we have to cancel scheduled works at short notice this week. We don’t want to pass the flu to you too.

We’re already booking surveys and receiving orders for treatment programmes and are able to provide suitable management plans for dealing with your Japanese knotweed. So why not call us? The office is still manned!

The time to start treating your Japanese knotweed is now, so call the professionals.

Another year… another season of Japanese knotweed and I’m looking forward to it. I take great pride in signing contracts off, when the knotweed has been eradicated, monitored for re-growth and after two seasons with no growth, we can issue a Certificate of Eradication. That is the best part of my job!

The good news for us and our customers is that we can continue using glyphosate based herbicides. Without this vital resource, we would have no tools available to use in environmentally sensitive areas such as watercourses, etc. The other possible options in these areas (non-chemical) would involve the mass removal or burial of the affected soils – which is hugely costly and uses huge amounts of fossil fuels.

I expect to see more invasive weeds in 2018. In recent years, we have seen more plants causing problems, and known weeds getting worse. The main terrestrial plans that are not (currently) included in Schedule 9 of The Wildlife and Countryside Act (1981) would for me include Himalayan knotweed (which hybridises readily with Japanese knotweed and is now spreading rapidly in many parts of the country) and also many species of bamboo.

Bamboo is an important weed in its own right and we see large infestations of this plant, which can cause very real issues with neighbours! Bamboo may also (like knotweed) lift paving slabs, destroy hard surfaces and infest surrounding ornamental areas, killing the other plants by outcompeting them. It’s a real thug and takes a number of years to kill.

We’re already booking surveys and receiving orders for treatment programmes and are able to provide suitable management plans for dealing with your Japanese knotweed. So why not call us?

The time to start treating your Japanese knotweed is now, so call the professionals.

As regular readers of this blog know (and there are a few!), I usually write a few words on the 2017 season and perhaps look ahead to 2018.

2017 was an interesting year in the industry, we welcomed the renewal of the licence to use glyphosate in herbicides – glyphosate in its many formulations is essential for the control and eradication of invasive weeds – there is nothing else in many situations! We can either use glyphosate or watch invasive weeds destroy our natural environment. These options are stark and clear and we already have hectare plus blocks of knotweed growing adjacent to rivers, which are effectively sterile environments, of little or no benefit to the environment. Using glyphosate to kill the invasive plants, we can then restore the natural environment – without glyphosate, we can only watch the weeds spread.

We’ve had another good year in 2017, we had a new member of staff join our team and have continued to offer our professional services across all of England and Wales.

Legally, Japanese knotweed has had an interesting year, Network Rail have lost one case in Wales, concerning Japanese knotweed and are currently appealing the decision. This may (if the appeal is lost) make an interesting legal precedent. More on this in 2018. The first anti-social behaviour orders (ASBOs) were issued in 2017, to people or organisations who have failed to control their Japanese knotweed, fines and enforcement of the orders are then typically put into place.

Mortgage companies continue to review Japanese knotweed. We have not yet experienced a rejection of our Knotweed Management Plans from any of the larger lenders (smaller lenders are typically more risk averse). The only issues that we have experienced have been where a client has undertaken eradication/concealment/landscaping works (typically involving excavation) before involving us – our surveys have to reflect this and we can only report what we have found on site.

We have a number of interesting projects that we are working on at the moment, and these take us around the country – so you might see our vans on site in the New Year from Marazion to Margate or from Southampton to Sunderland or from Bangor to Barry! Wherever Japanese knotweed grows we’ll be there!

Our offices are closed from 12.30pm today until 8.30am Tuesday 2nd January 2018. We wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Japanese knotweed may only effectively be treated with an herbicide, when there is green growth still showing above ground. This may include leaves, but effective treatment can still be made to green stems. However, frost and cold nights will encourage the plant to die back for the winter and so the end of the season for effective treatment will depend on where you live. Typically speaking the high peaks in Derbyshire will be amongst the first places to senesce and urban heat islands the last. We would say that a typical season finishes between the middle of October to the end of November depending on location, but seasons vary! I have known seasons to end by mid-October or to persist up to Christmas.

This season appears to be milder than usual but a sharp frost could change matters very quickly and of course there can be lost days or weeks if heavy rain or strong winds occur. Therefore we aim to complete all our scheduled autumn works by the end of October. This involves a lot of work by all our staff and even office types like myself and Jim are out with our knapsack sprayers treating Japanese knotweed in September and October.

If you haven’t placed an order yet for your Japanese knotweed, than don’t panic - we are working up and down the country at the moment, and have availability for surveys and treatments throughout England and Wales. Just call us or email us and discuss your knotweed problem – we have a well trained and experienced team who can tackle any knotweed problem.

The time to start treating your Japanese knotweed is now, so call the professionals.

Japanese knotweed continues to spread and continues to make the news. It is in many respects a slow burning issue, typically starting as a small shoot, perhaps spread into your garden by soil disturbance. Over years it grows into a large bushy plant and then, you find out that you have a mature knotweed plant, often when you come to sell your house…

If you’re at this stage, don’t panic! We at The Knotweed Company have a team of qualified Japanese knotweed surveyors, and we are quite used to dealing with property sales and Japanese knotweed. We have a very good record of producing survey reports and solutions tailored to the property, which usually allow the sale to proceed without too much delay. Our success in this area is over 90%, although this may involve selecting a larger mortgage company, as opposed to the smaller lenders, who may have more restrictive criteria for lending on properties with a knotweed problem.

We are able to offer appropriate solutions for each property that has a problem with Japanese knotweed, and (naturally) can usually offer an insurance backed guarantee (if required).

The time to start treating your Japanese knotweed is now, so call the professionals.

We cover all of England and Wales and have surveyors & technicians in a number of locations, which include Hampshire, London, Sussex, Essex, and Northamptonshire. We also are regularly working in areas such as Yorkshire, Durham, Tyneside, Manchester and Merseyside. We have large number of contracts in Merthyr Tydfil, Newport and Cardiff and also travel into the more rural parts of Wales.

Japanese knotweed control and eradication requires many visits over a few years before certification of eradication can be issued, needless to say all this costs money! Some of our competitors require that you pay all the costs of this programme either up front or in 2-3 payments in the first year – this can be difficult for people to fund…

We at The Knotweed Company offer a much more realistic approach to our ongoing contracts. We can (if for instance a mortgage company requires it), take the monies in one or two payments, or we can simply invoice as the works progress according to an agreed schedule. The ‘pay as you go’ approach has several advantages for our clients including budgeting of costs and keeping control of their money.

We aim to work with our clients and seek to offer a fair way of payment for services that may last a number of years. I always ask people a simple question, if you were arranging vehicle servicing for a five or six year period, would you pay the garage up front? Why should Japanese knotweed be any different?

We aim to work with our clients, we don’t have a one size fits all policy.

As regular readers will know, I try and avoid using scary language in these blogs. There are plenty of other websites out there that try to scare you. So why the scary heading? Well Giant hogweed is a scary weed.

Giant hogweed originates from the Western Caucasus in Southwest Russia. It is a short lived perennial typically taking 3-5 years to grow from a seed, flowering in its last year and then dying. Each plant typically produces 20,000 seeds in its final year – although it can produce much higher numbers of seeds in favourable circumstances.

Doesn’t sound scary? Well consider this: the sap from this plant is a known biohazard. If the sap (especially from a flowering plant) gets onto your skin, the sap removes your natural skin protection from normal sunlight and your skin burns and blisters when exposed to sunlight. If you get sap into your eyes you can be temporarily or permanently blinded. If you get sap around your mouth you can choke and die. Fortunately the worst cases of human health issues are rarely seen in this country, however the blistering and burning are quite common and symptoms may persist for years.

Still not scary enough? Giant hogweed sap is a known mutagen and may cause mutations in foetuses so should be of particular concern to pregnant women and other mammals.

We frequently treat Giant hogweed and use special extending lances to apply herbicide (and so avoid contact with the plant). We have been appalled by seeing some people recently who on finding out that they have Giant hogweed then decide to chop it down! This is not a good idea… even if you take a lot of precautions you are still exposing yourself to a lot of biohazardous sap and this should only be done by specialists in extreme circumstances; for instance in areas where you cannot fence the area off and/or use signage to exclude people from the area while treatment is taking place.

I like to avoid dramatic headlines, when writing this blog. However there is a time and a place, when I think you can be excused for using one. Are we winning the war against Japanese knotweed? The short answer is ‘No’. We can and do win individual battles, and nothing gives me greater satisfaction than being able to certify that a site’s knotweed has indeed been eradicated. However knotweed is still being spread faster than it is being controlled and many infestations are either not being controlled at all (let alone eradicated) or are being inappropriately treated.

Inappropriate treatment is a source of concern to me. I came across one instance the other week, where ‘Professional’ Knotweed contractors were giving some very poor advice to a client – one that could have had some serious consequences for them (heavy fines and/or prosecution) as well as environmental issues. Fortunately the client realised that this proposal was inappropriate and called us in. We rapidly devised a simple and cost effective means of enabling the client’s works to proceed and completed the works yesterday.

I started in the Japanese knotweed industry many years ago and went full time in the industry from early in 2005. Other people in the company have similar or earlier start dates, as such we can call upon a wealth of experience in finding an appropriate solution for your knotweed problem.

Last night, Jim Glaister and I were present at the Property Care Association’s annual Awards Dinner. I was under the impression that I was there to lead the applause for the winning candidates and to network generally.

It was a great evening, and was made all the better for me, when to my surprise, I found myself being awarded Student of the Year for the Certificated Surveyor in Japanese knotweed. I sat the exam last spring at a difficult time and had been glad to pass it, so I was truly shocked to learn that I had been awarded this prize.

Jim (who won the same award in 2015) had been in on the secret and he and Sue Uttridge had planned the surprise very well. Well done to you both!

I think this is a unique situation for any Japanese knotweed Company having two people within it, who have now received this coveted award. I feel both proud and humbled by this.

It has been a fairly mild spring and Japanese knotweed (where it has either not been treated or only perhaps had 1-2 treatments) will already have emerged and is growing strongly. Treated knotweed typically emerges much later and in a much less vigorous way.

The big question however is - can we treat it yet?

The answer is not just yet. We need to allow the growth on the vigorously growing stands to reach at least 1.8-2 metres in height, as this presents a good target for the herbicide. Prior to this the plant will still be very actively growing and will tend to grow out of treatments rather than take the herbicide to the rhizomes underground – which is where we need it to be transported to. IF we don’t have any severe frosts (which will kill the above ground growth), than I estimate that we will be able to start treating knotweed in some areas in the next two weeks (typically Southern England and urban areas) with other areas a week or so later. However this could all change in the event of a hard frost!

Japanese knotweed that has been already treated several times, or is approaching the end of a herbicide programme, will not normally emerge until later in the year – perhaps not until July or August and inspections and treatments timings need to reflect this – it would be pointless to carry out site inspections (on existing sites) in April or in December and looking for live growth!

This week while working in Cornwall, we found areas of Japanese knotweed with new growth in excess of 1 metre. Some shoots were around 4 feet high (or 1.2 metres if you prefer!). This is extremely early to be seeing such growth!

It is of course possible that this early growth of Japanese knotweed will still be killed off by severe frosts, but this seems increasingly unlikely for the next few weeks and so it may well be, that we shall see some significant knotweed growth (2-3 metres high) by early to mid-May. By contrast last year, knotweed had barely started growing before early May.

Work is picking up nicely now and our surveyors are keeping busy, assessing new sites. We hope to fill our Trainee Surveyor/estimator position next week and aim to continue to offer our customers good service and competitive pricing for our services in the coming season.

We are seeing that Japanese knotweed is already forming buds, preparatory to making shoots in the spring. All we need now is some warmer weather and knotweed will start to produce the asparagus like spears (mature stands), which can grow at an extraordinary rate – a foot a week, or 43mm a day if we’re being metric! We would expect to see shoots quite soon now, perhaps in urban areas such as Bristol or London.

We normally experience a quiet spell in late winter/early spring, but not this year! We’re nearly flat out working on sites across England and Wales. However we expect to get busier if this warm weather keeps up!

We’re still looking for a trainee Surveyor for Japanese knotweed and would draw attention to our earlier blogs about applying for this interesting vacancy. We would also consider appointing a new Knotweed technician as well and would again welcome applicants for this Daventry based role.

A very interesting legal case has recently been heard. In it a householder successfully sued Network Rail for failing to control their Japanese knotweed, which had then spread into his property. This is (as far as we know) only the second case (the first being Flanagan v Wigan Metropolitan Borough Council in 1995). This more recent case however established an important point, that not only had there been direct encroachment by the knotweed onto Mr Waistell’s land, but also that the mere presence of untreated Japanese knotweed on adjoining land was an actionable interference with the use and enjoyment of Mr Waistell’s land. As a result of this Mr Waistell has been awarded damages including for the resulting reduction in value of his property and the costs of the treatment.

This is an important legal case and it will change the advice that we will now offer as it holds landowners to account and imposes a positive duty on them to ensure that any Japanese knotweed that is on their property is not preventing neighbouring owners from being able to sell their property for the market value.

Job Vacancy. For anyone interested in working with Japanese knotweed, we are looking to recruit a trainee Surveyor/estimator to be based at our Daventry office – CVs to be emailed to me please at brian@jkweed.co.uk. We offer a comprehensive training package and competitive salary and benefits. The right candidate will learn all about the process of treating Japanese knotweed including pesticide application, surveying and management of invasive weeds. A full driving licence is essential, as is a good standard of written and spoken English.

The duties for this position are varied and will include (but not be limited to): herbicide applications, brush cutting and scrub clearance, surveys, report writing, estimating and preparation of quotations.

A full Job Description for this post is available and can be emailed on request. We intend to fill this position in April or early May.

The successful candidate will need to be reasonably fit, able to do surveys in gardens, commercial sites, etc. including rough and unkempt areas of land and be willing to travel as part of their work. We are a small team, but offer very professional training both in-house and externally. The gross salary for this position, would range between £24,000 to £30,000+, the starting salary will reflect previous experience and qualifications in this field. Other benefits include pension contributions to a personal pension scheme.

The Knotweed Company is an equal opportunities employer and welcomes applications from any suitable candidates.

We have been preparing technical surveys for properties infested with Japanese knotweed for some years now. Our surveyors have all taken and passed the appropriate examination -Certificated Surveyor in Japanese knotweed (CSJK) - with the Property Care Association (PCA) and all our surveyors have many years’ experience of working with Japanese knotweed.

Our management team have spent (and still spend) considerably amounts of time in working directly with the PCA and other PCA members in developing the invasive weed training courses and examinations. Our rewards for this are not obvious, but it does include the development of our expertise, so keeping us at the forefront of the invasive weed market.

We recently completed a survey on Japanese knotweed and received some interesting feedback from the mortgage company, who commented on our professionalism and excellent quality of the report and information contained.

We are also developing our expertise in preparing Expert Witness Reports and have already undertaken works in this field and specialist training so that we can continue to meet the needs of our customers in this important area.

Job Vacancy. For anyone interested in working with Japanese knotweed, we are looking to recruit a trainee Surveyor/estimator to be based at our Daventry office – CVs to be emailed to me please at brian@jkweed.co.uk We offer a comprehensive training package and competitive salary and benefits. The right candidate will learn all about the process of treating Japanese knotweed including pesticide application, surveying and management of invasive weeds. A full driving licence is essential, as is a good standard of written and spoken English.