Perhaps Our Biggest Obstacle!

 

Southwest Corner of Our Property, March 2025

This photo shows the beginning of our third year of fighting the invasive Japanese knotweed on this end of our property. While we were aware of the issue, it wasn't until 2023, our second summer here, that we started trying to deal with the problem.

We hired Strauser Nature's Helpers to help us. We followed the plan presented by Penn State Extension and suggested by Strauser's expert on knotweed eradication, Robin. In the photo here, one can see where their crew had started cutting all the knotweed to around three feet in late June of 2023. If it is not cut then, it will be too high (10+ feet) to spray later at the appropriate time. Then in September, between flowering and the first hard frost, they returned and sprayed with an herbicide. It is at that time that the leaves are pulling nutrients into the rhizomes, the true nemesis. They repeated the process again in 2024. We are hoping that we can continue the eradication on our own starting this year, without the expense and extensive use of herbicide. 

We need to take several steps to try to eliminate the knotweed: remove the rhizome clumps, plan and plant to provide competition, and watch for young knotweed sprouts. The larger rhizomes are roughly the size of a boot or football. Several sources suggest digging them up and storing them in black plastic bags in the sun before "disposing properly." I have seen conflicting advice about dealing with young shoots that appear. Some have suggested digging them out, while others have suggested letting them grow and applying herbicide in September. We are in the first phase of planning and planting a mix of trees, shrubs, and other plants, many of them native. The development of the plan and first steps of planting may be topics of further posts.