Ep 270 - To Weed or Not Weed Knotweed

Hello, fellow lovers of all things green.

To weed or not to weed, not weed.

That was the question.

Or should I say, the complication.

after working in my dear client Karen's garden last Saturday.

Japanese knotweed and I go back a ways.

In September 2018, I wrote a column called September Roadside Beauties, when I admired the showy white lacy flowers while acknowledging its aggressive ways.

Japanese knotweed, also called Asian knotweed, tells the origin.

Though shrub-like, it isn't woody, but a hefty herbaceous perennial in the buckwheat family.

Its hollow stems look bamboo-like, and it grows 10 to 13 feet tall.

Some call it fleece flower, monkey weed, or donkey rhubarb.

They say it tastes like very sour rhubarb, and you have to be dumb as a donkey to eat it.

The thing is, donkeys aren't dumb.

They're pretty smart, actually, but indeed stubborn.

We can't blame an animal for digging in its heels to protect itself, however, can we? Showy sprays of white flowers cover the colonizing plants from late summer into fall.

Pollinators adore the plethora of plumes when not much else is blooming.

The buzz catching the attention of passersby truly is amazing.

You should hear the sound of the insects spinning around on those beautiful lacy flowers.

Beautiful, yes, but I've learned much more about the beauty since then.

Four years after writing that first story, I came upon my new neighbor, Susan, fervently pulling knotweed from the construction site of the home she and her husband were building.

Jolie and I were just getting to know them and we stopped in to visit.

Susan pulled and pulled, determined to rid the property of the colony that I once admired along the roadside.

And she did it.

She was able to eradicate the problem.

I remember watching her persistence and thinking, goodness, that's a lot of work.