Battling the Knotweed
After work, Liz and I decided to take advantage of the warm weather and spent a little time clearing the backyard. Here she is spraying some of the horribly invasive Japanese knotweed that’s everywhere.
There’s a large spot of it in our neighbor’s area, which we got permission to go in and clear. Unfortunately, when we razed the entire backyard, they opted to not clear this area of their backyard. As a result, it’s a little overgrown and needs some love and care.
A lot of the knotweed is dead, but there’s a small interior bit that’s still alive and growing. Liz is indicating to me how small it was, just even a week ago.
Pulling out the dead stalks.
Liz, armed with the sawzall.
Tackling the problem at the root. One of the roots, anyways.
Oh the things one finds in the yard…
Digging out the base of the knotweed.
Surprisingly, this wasn’t all that deep. There are some big roots that definitely do go deep, but this was right next to a concrete slab (and many bricks). So it came up surprisingly easily.
The patch we cleared (as well as we could). Not too shabby for an hour plus of work, after the end of a full work day.
Related:
Clearing the Wilderness: Backyard Transformation, Day 1
Garden Box Construction, Part 12 (Plus a Full Day Working the Backyard)
It felt so good to start this excavation! This patch has just been constantly itching me the last 2 years.
Liz (April 19, 2017 at 10:24 am)