Environment 🍃 Invasive plant: Japanese Knotweed threat

[Shellac And Vinyl VelocitY]

The start of this thread will be similar to to how, seven years ago, I started this thread:
Invasive bamboo plant becoming major crisis in U.S., world. Laws are needed to avert crises

Asking Cyburbians to post planning issues regarding the invasive Japanese Knotweed plant species.

Please share links to laws/ordinances that are being proposed or written, or have already gone into effect.

Has your fair city or town written an ordinance with regard to Japanese Knotweed?
If not -> Why not?
If yes -> How is code enforcement going?
.
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[Maister]

Coincidently a lady came in not 30 minutes ago telling me how she tried to cut this down on her property and it keeps coming back with a vengeance. Whatever you do DON'T CUT THE STUFF DOWN. THATS HOW IT PROPAGATES!!! You need a heavy duty herbicide to kill this stuff.

Do not mow Japanese Knotweed

Japanese Knotweed, a destructive invader, will proliferate if mowed.

www.canr.msu.edu

 

[MD Planner]

That stuff is bad news. It even overgrows kudzu!

 

[Shellac And Vinyl VelocitY]

That stuff is bad news. It even overgrows kudzu!

You are correct; that dreaded, invasive kudzu doesn't stand a chance against Japanese Knotweed!
MD Planner- Does your region or town have any ordinances against selling or deliberately growing the knotweed?
_____________________________________________________

Meanwhile, across the pond.....
The U.K. has some very strict measures to control the proliferation of Japanese Knotweed in that region. For example:
Housing development site infested with Japanese knotweed, plans reveal

Housing development site infested with Japanese knotweed plans reveal

PLANS to get rid of Japanese Knotweed from land being developed for homes in Carlisle could take five years, says a site survey.

www.newsandstar.co.uk

The plan to build 63 houses on land in England's Carlisle City was started last year. The City Council, however, must put further development on hold until it considers plans to deal with the invasive knotweed problem submitted by a real estate developer.

According to the application form, "no development shall take place until details of a scheme to eradicate Japanese Knotweed has been submitted."

According to a [site] survey, the treatment recommendation is a: "Three to five year herbicide plan which includes two monitoring growing seasons that show no evidence of Japanese Knotweed growth, excavation and burial on site."

 

[DVD]

We don't do much about it here. Plants don't like to grow as much in the desert heat.

 

[MD Planner]

We don't specifically have any ordinances about noxious weeds. The closest thing I've ever seen is some landscaping requirements that strongly encourage native species of plantings. I've seen that several places.

 

[Shellac And Vinyl VelocitY]

We don't specifically have any ordinances about noxious weeds. The closest thing I've ever seen is some landscaping requirements that strongly encourage native species of plantings. I've seen that several places.

You know which Southern State is mighty pissed about Japanese Knotweed that's invading their land?
TENNESSEE!
Invasive Japanese knotweed worse than kudzu, threatens East Tennessee ecosystems

Invasive Japanese knotweed worse than kudzu, threatens East Tennessee ecosystems

Scientists say knotweed is a "scourge" upon ecosystems. It's taking over East Tennessee riverbanks and even competing with kudzu.

www.knoxnews.com

"The 'scourge' of the South, maybe the world?"

"It is a scourge," said Daniel Simberloff, an environmental scientist at the University of Tennessee.

. . .
Simberloff said the plant can grow at a rate of about 4 inches per day, and grows both by spreading seeds and by its creeping, "monster-sized" underground rhizomes.

The Tennessee Invasive Plant Council (TIPC) classifies Japanese Knotweed as a "severe threat that can only be controlled with strong herbicides."
"But you don't want to use any kind of glyphosate-based herbicide near a stream," said TIPC member Belinda Ferro.

"Dangerous to ecosystems and property values"
The World Conservation Union has listed knotweed as the “world’s worst invasive species."

Japanese knotweed was first introduced in Europe as a fast-growing plant with potential as a cattle feed, an ornamental plant or a erosion control plant. [T]he weed quickly spread over the United Kingdom where the government now classifies pieces of the plant as controlled waste.

Mortgage companies have refused applications for United Kingdom properties with knotweed because it can sprout through walls, floorboards and foundations, said Ferro. She has not heard of the plant taking over buildings in Tennessee, but said it's possible the problem to could reach the magnitude it has in the United Kingdom if the plant continues to spread unchecked.

 

[Dan]

This si the first time I've heard of Japanese knotweed, believe it or not. The most prominent here are garlic mustard, mugwort, various knapweeds, and the biggie -- giant hogweed. Giant hogweed is "call the NYS DEC is you see it, and they'll arrive within a day or two with flamethrowers" bad. Look at it the wrong way, and your skin will start to burn and blister.

 

[Shellac And Vinyl VelocitY]

. . .
...Giant hogweed is "call the NYS DEC is you see it, and they'll arrive within a day or two with flamethrowers" bad. Look at it the wrong way, and your skin will start to burn and blister.

OMG, yes, Giant Hogweed is an awful problem in New York State!

Dan, you might be slightly horrified to learn why it became especially prevalent in Western NY:
Gardens near Highland Park, Rochester, has the earliest recorded Giant Hogweed planting in North America--in 1917. It had been imported as. and was considered to be, an impressive, low-maintenance ornamental plant, with giant flower heads that could be over two feet wide.

This invasive species, which is native to the Eurasia region, is spreading throughout the U.S. as the decades pass. But the NY State region got a 100-year head start!

The trouble, at least here in Downstate, is that so many people view their Giant Hogweed as an asset. They give the plant a "nice" name, (often Queen Anne's Lace). They prune it into a large, neat semi-circle, to create what appears to be a pretty, low-maintenance flowering bush.

Those people who do the hogweed pruning--including "professional landscapers" who should really know better--pretty much always wear gardening-gloves, -clothing, -gear; the pruners do not feel the flowers' burns. (Or at least they say they don't feel the burns.)

A not-uncommon sighting in people's Downstate New York yards is a cluster of pruned bushes that includes a Giant Hogweed bush looking like this:

 

[Maister]

Hogweed. Get that in your eye and you will go BLIND!!

 

[Shellac And Vinyl VelocitY]

Hogweed. Get that in your eye and you will go BLIND!!

Likely, unless the eye is flushed out immediately and completely. Preferably by a medical professional.

Why must a certain number of tragedies like that have to happen, accompanied by massive lawsuits--before there are laws against selling or planting hogweed, or not ridding it from your property?