I had a large patch of it when I moved into this place. It grew to be about 8 feet high and took up a full 6x8 patch of my yard last summer. I noted where it all grew, and made my plans. I got out there first thing as soon as the snow melted this year and dug up all the roots I could get out, but it still sends up shoots here and there. As I find them, I take my shovel, and cut straight down about 3 inches away from the shoot, then wiggle (I have a straight edge square shovel about 6 inches wide, not much flex) but don't scoop the dirt out (you don't need to dig out the shoots, just the woody roots). That loosens the dirt around the shoot, then grasp the shoot at the very base (try to get it below the ground slightly if you have mulch or loose dirt) and WIGGLE it as you pull it, and you'll get the whole shoot, not just breaking it off at the ground. I've been told that if you keep pulling the shoots, after you've dug out all the woody root you can (THAT is the hard part!), you will slowly rob the plant of its strength, and it will eventually give up the fight and begone. Do NOT attempt to put ANY part of it in the compost pile! It's NOT just the roots that start new plants, it's ANY PART OF IT, so don't drop even a tiny shoot! You must BURN all of the knotweed plant and roots, as if you put it in the trash, it will then just takeover the landfill, and spread from there. If you have the concrete block to support it, you can leave the plants to completely DRY OUT, but there cannot be any soil contact of any kind, so it is just easier to burn it all. It's an extremely invasive species here in Vermont, it's a regestered Class B Noxious Weed, and its taking over like the kudzu did down in Tennessee. Every roadside is covered in it, it has killed out almost all of our traditional roadside flora like ferns, milkweed, grasses, wildflowers. It's all dead, it's just knotweed, everywhere. Southern Vermont is basically infested beyond all hope at this point. Here's a good webpage on eradication methods: http://efotg.sc.egov.usda.gov/references/public/VT/JS315-knotweed.pdf For a good note: I made the effort to talk to my neighbors about what it is and how invasive it is, and EVERY ONE OF THEM let me dig it out of their yards too. So, don't be afraid to talk to your neighbors about it, there's a good chance they will be smart enough to let you eradicate it from THEIR yards too! Here is a link that might be useful: Vermont Agency of Agriculture: Noxious Weeds

I am just in the process of getting rid of an invasive plant. How large an area is it? Are you willing to forgo planting anything else for the rest of the season? If you are, then let the plants come up a bit, then cover the area with black plastic to exclude light. Leave it on for the rest of the season. Not very nice to look at (especially when you consider you could have a nice flower bed there instead) but it works.

Hi - we managed to get rid of knotweed completely - will tell you how I did it. I'm here because of a BBC article and got me remembering and thinking. I don't understand why everyone says this is so difficult to get rid of it seemed really easy to me anyway. 4 years ago we bought a flat - it had knotweed noted on the survey, it was pretty big area of huge tall weeds, but we haggled the price and bought for cash. Told we wouldn't get a mortgage because of the knotweed. Neighbours told us it was a nightmare they had battled for years and told us all the stories of council officials coming out to look at it and trying to apply for grant funding etc etc to get it dug out with JCB's and burned. Anyway, we decided ourselves to get an estimate from a professional company - priced in the £000's. I did some reading and research about the plant and controlling it. Went to b and q and bought a large quantity of the strongest glyphosate I could find, it said it could treat like 500m/sq. this patch was maybe 20 metres by 5 metres - pretty big for me anyway. It was supposed to be pretty diluted but I only used about 10% water maybe. I also bought a £15 manual spray pump and some gloves and some sponges. I went with some ladders on a Saturday morning in August, it was about 15 degrees C, cloud cover and dry. i coated every single leaf I could with the stuff - several times during the day and again after it dried off or was absorbed. I then found all the thickest stems and bunches and cut them down about halfway, and poured the stuff into the stems - filled right to the top. Then topped them off later that evening - and used the last of the strong spray solution I had made for another final spray coating. Over the next few weeks they starting visibly dying. The winter came and went and by July the following year everything was completely dead. I took plenty of before, during and after photos which I still have. That was 4 years ago I did that and not one single sign of it has returned. It cost me like £80 of materials and maybe 12 hours of my time. I knew nothing whatsoever about Japanese knotweed or plants and gardening and still don't. I was later told that national rail and the local council had actually sent 'a man' every season for 'several years' previous to our buying the place to 'spray the plants' to try and get rid of them. With little success apparently. What I find totally and utterly bizarre is that someone like me, completely clueless about horticulture and plants, was able to completely kill - permanently - a pretty substantial bank of this stuff in like 1 day, with stuff bought from the local hardware shop - and yet the Internet is full of stories and news reports of people spending fortunes and despairing in heartache over it. Was I lucky somehow? Genuinely I've always been curious about this and would welcome input from those more experienced.

I have battled spider mites and I have found only one cure. For a plant that is inside or in a place where it cannot be easily hosed off, the only thing I have found to work are PREDATORY MITES. I tried all the chemicals and never had 100% success. I tried buying predator mites and released them onto my plants and they took care of my spider mite problem. I was amazed. They do not harm plants and once the spider mite food source is gone they die off too. The one caveat is that you cannot have sprayed chemicals onto your plant first. I tried introducing predators to a plant that had pyrethrins sprayed on it and the predators just die. I was told I could put the plant out in the rain to try and wash off the chemicals but I do not know if this will actually help as I could not do this in the winter without killing the plant. Predator mites will likely cost you $50 with the overnight shipping that is required. But is works. Several different vendors will distribute them, but all predators come from either 2 places, both in CA. I had mine shipped to the east coast and the first time they all arrived dead. The vendor replaced for free and this time they had them drop shipped directly from the grower and that worked great.