Japanese Knotweed a type of perennial plant that grows as a shrub and grows on buildings and homes. Just when you thought that it’s perfect to give your home a medieval-look, mortgage plans for your property may not be possible. The root structure of the said weed can potentially damage walls and floors or any structure that it attaches itself into.

Japanese Knotweed Overview

Japanese knotweed is a plant species that came from the eastern part of Asia. Its native name “itadori” literally means ‘take away pain’ since it is used as pain killers in traditional medicine. The plant was brought to the country as an ornamental plant and soon infested the waterways and ruining concrete structures. Contrary to its meaning, the plant can actually become a source of headache whenever they start invading your walls and other parts of your property.

Because of how damaging it may become, the UK Parliament issued a law prohibiting the spread in the wild or any vicinity according to Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. All by products and wastes from the knotweed is under control of the Environmental Protection Act of 1990 Part 2.
In this case, it is necessary to guard your homes or buildings from the said plant species. In doing this, you have to be very keen on spotting plant buds. In doing regular lawn and backyard check-up, make sure that you’ll be able to identify if the growing plants are budding Japanese knotweed. This is to prevent growth and further germination. These are some indications of a young knotweed growing in your structure.

• Red or purple shoots appear from the ground, forming canes.
• The rhizomes, are usually leather dark-brown in color and snaps if you break them.
• These canes will soon have leaf sprouts and unfurl.
• They can grow up to 3 meters high and produce flowers in the late summer.

Plants are supposed to be helpful for people. But when it comes to Japanese knotweed, it may be otherwise especially if it is growing in development sites. Not only that the plant can grow as much as 3 meters, but also their population can grow exponentially in no time. If you leave them to grow on your property, expect the worst to happen in your structure. Because of this, you may have difficulty in selling your property. If you’ll be able to find a buyer, you’ll be forced to decrease the price of your property even if you’ve bought or invested in it more.

In getting rid of the Japanese knotweed, de-weeding will not do much of the job especially if the plant will not be completely uprooted. In this case, you would need modern procedures to make sure that the weeds will be removed and will not come back to the same area again. Experts advise you to have stem injection, spraying, or whole area removal depending on the need. These processes usually need expert service providers to do them.

Image By dankogreen