Sob! Can you all come and commiserate with me on my garden nightmare please

[IlanaK]

This is really long - sorry!

We moved two months ago into a garden flat with a massive (over 100ft and very wide) garden. We have not had a garden for about 8 years so this was very exciting. It was a mostly blank canvas - three quarters was just grass (put in by developers 6 years ago) and the back quarter was over grown.

We paid landscapers to completely revamp it for us. It cost a fortune and took 3 weeks, but is gorgeous. I wanted low maintanance, child friendly, and the opportunity to grow vegetables. So we have raised beds (over 2 ft high) at the part of the garden nearest the house - one for lettuces and one for herbs - and a massive planter of the same height in the middle of the garden for vegetables.

We kept one largish square of lawn which we surrounded by path near the house and bark chipped a large section for the kids play stuff. At the raised rear, it is a combination of bark chips on one part and shingle on the other.

So, after all that, we now have a massive japanese knotweed problem. The gardener identified it in the overgrown rear among a mass of ground elder. There was only one or two smallish patches. I did not know what it was when he told me (being a non- gardener) and he did not elaborate. I specifically asked him if the weed suppressing membrane he was putting down would suppress everything and he said yes. Unsuprisingly, from what I now know, it is growing through the membrane already and there is much more of it because they cleared the area by taking off the top layer of weeds and soil - which I now know stimulates its spread and growth.

This is not the worst though. The devastating part is that in the last week (only two weeks since he finished work) we have noticed japanese knotweed growing in all our veg beds. WHen he built them, I told him how important it was that they were filled with really good quality soil as I would be growing food for my kids in them. He half filled them with the soil and grass that they dug up from the garden (which he assured me would be good for the soil) and then filled with delivered top soil. So what he has basically done is contaminate an area of the garden that had no JKW. And I can't spray it as it will contaminate the soil the veg is growing in.

In addition, we noticed it is coming up all are the edge of the grass area. This again can be accounted for by the fact that when they dug up the grass for the path, they dug it slightly too wide. So they then filled a small border all the way round with turf they has dug up. This turf has been stacked at the back with the rest of the weeds and was obviously contaminated.

And, they filled the newly made compost bins with topsoil they dug up which means all my compost will be contaminated now too.

So I feel like crying as my kids are watching their seeds grow each day and I am watching the JKW grow instead. My husband is fuming mad and wants to gardener to come and dig out all the raised beds, dispose of it (which has to be done in a special way) and then line the bottoms and refill with clean soil. He can't get the gardener to even call him back yet (and the gardener doesn't know that we have this issue yet) and I can see this all getting nasty.

I am so sad about it all.

[Shallishanti]

I think maybe you should speak to a solicitor. Surely a professional gardener ought to be alert to this sort of thing. However, they may be keen to put it all right for you- reputation is very important- we got some landscape gardeners following a personal recommendation and have recommended them in turn- obviously you won't be doing that unless they hurry round to put things right.
It must be awful though, really heartbreaking.
I did read somewhere there is now a biological control for JKW, some kind of bug, but I don't know if it's available to the public.

[IlanaK]

They did come on a personal recommendation or I would not have used them. And they seemed good when they did the job. But this is such an unforgivable error to make. HE knew the knotweed was there as he was the one to point it out to me! And surely as a gardener he must have known all the issue around it. It only took me one evening of googling to learn the terrible truth.

We may well have to get a solicitor involved. The cost of taking all this out of the planters, disposing of it, and then refilling will be extremely high. I can't see him being happy to do it. And my kids are going to be heartbroken if we have to dig up and dispose of all their new vegetable plants.

[Shallishanti]

could you put the kids veg in a grow bag or something?

[HonestyBox]

I would say that you must get the gardener back in to comment on the situation and then discuss the course of action re. their further contamination of the garden with JKW. Highlight the fact that their unruly behavior has spread it around the garden. This could be costly to eradicate and I should think that they might have to cover some of the cost at the very least. Personally I wouldn't involve solicitors yet, I would try to get them to fix the problem, or at least the part made worse by them and keep things amicable if possible.

There are clearly some big mistakes, they should definitely not have put old topsoil in your garden compost heap under any circumstances, they have done this to save money on taking the topsoil away and for no other reason. It is not good to put old soil or potting compost into the compost heap and even the council will not accept it for their own compost. I can understand transferring topsoil to the raised beds but not if contaminated with JKW - god no. My feeling is that they did this to save money on new topsoil, they shouldn't have put old turf in there either, makes no sense.

I'm so sorry for your situation but you can sort it out. I would ask them to begin excavating the raised beds and compost right away with no time to lose and to take it all away. You will have more chance of getting it all out if you start now. I would then wait until next year before filling the beds again to see if the JKW starts up again. The liner will do absolutely nothing against JKW and there is really no point putting it in your raised beds.

To begin the rest of the eradication you will need to get a syringe from the pharmacy and start injecting the stems with weedkiller on a regular basis - I have heard many reports that this is the best way but I don't have personal experience. Glyphosate is what you need (round-up). see here Also, if injecting you won't have to worry about contamination from the spray. You can also paint the leaves with this stuff as a double whammy.

For the DCs I would get some container gardening going with cut and come again salad leaves, saxa radishes, nasturtuims in lots of colours, californian poppies, dwarf sunflowers, red sunflowers, giants, courgettes, rocket, summer squash. This will be good while you sort out the mess and you can do it for almost no money. I have used those plastic laundry bags with nice patterns on in the past, cut some holes in the bottoms and fill with grow bag compost.

HTH

[ASmallBunchOfFlowers]

RHS advice on JKW is here.

I agree that you should attempt to get the gardener back to rectify all the damage (although just one more note of caution - JKW can grow through tarmac so lining the beds won't be much of an obstacle against it). But, with the likely cost of putting everything right, I think it would do no harm to let the gardener know that if all else fails you would be willing to go to law. Claims of less than £5000 can go through the small claims procedure - look at the Court Service website for more info.

[IlanaK]

Thanks everyone. My Dh tried to call him yesterday but he refused to take the call. So Dh has laid it all out in an email with links to all the relevant legislation. I will wait and see what the response is. My DH wants the guy back to excavate the raised beds asap. But (sob) I think you are right that we should not refill them this year. The kids (and I) will be so upset by all this. Not to mention our garden looking aweful.

As to the syringing, that is what I thought we should do about the rest, but I am still worried about the effects of the weed killer on health see here

We probably have no choice though.

[HonestyBox]

Hi again - sounds like he is dodging the call no? I looked at the link that someone posted above to the RHS page on JKW and it says that topsoil transfer is the most common way to spread it as it does not self-seed.

I also read up that it is best to start the weed-killer injection attack in late summer as that is when it will be drawing sap back down to its roots and you want it to take the glyphosate with it.

I agree about the weedkiller worries. This is why it would be best to excavate your veg beds and compost if poss. The waste has to be taken to a licensed disposal place - hopefully the gardener will sort this out. Use the weedkiller on your other bits.

You have still got time to get some other plants going, or ideally get some cheap pot-grown ones as garden centres will be selling them off around now, perhaps you can also get a wormery for the DCs, you can use it for your kitchen waste and it makes the best compost ever.

[ASmallBunchOfFlowers]

I think you're right - glyphosate is pretty much the only option. In a few years from now there will be the biological control but you can't wait that long.

If the gardener is refusing to take your calls (rather then genuinely, as far as you can tell, busy) then perhaps you do need a solicitor to send a 'letter before action'. Was this a well-known company or one man and his wheelbarrow? Either should have professional insurance but any reputable company ought to want to keep the customers content, to maintain their reputation.

[GrendelsMum]

I wouldn't despair too much - we actually have 2 sorts of JK on display in our Botanic Garden, and it is kept neatly in its proper bed. Yes, it's really upsetting when you were so pleased about the new garden, but it doensn't mean that all is lost.

[IlanaK]

If it was kept neatly in one place, it would not be a problem. That is how it was when we took over the garden. It is now all over it.

[bran]

If he doesn't respond to your email then I think you should send a registered letter so that he can't claim to be unaware of your issues should you need to take legal action.

[IlanaK]

He has responded saying that he agrees it is a serious issue. He has now read into it but did not realise the seriousness of the weed before. He says he did not use any turf from the rear of the garden where he identified the knotweed to fill the planters. HE said it is likely that there were already rhyzomes present in the soil under the grass area that were dormant. We have read up on this now and this is certainly possible. But if this is the case, he should have warned us of this possibilty before digging up the lawn. Surely a gardener should know about japanese knotweed? If he had identified the dangers to us, we could have decided to delay the landscaping and got a professional eradication company in first. I still think he has a liability in this though of course he says not.

[Pannacotta]

Poor you, very stressful and disappointing...
Rather than discussing liability, you could try and appeal to his better nature and perhaps reach an agreement where he comes back and remedies part of the work, such as emptying your compost bin and raised beds and disposing of the soil.
Worth a try?

[IlanaK]

He is saying he has no responsibility and suggests we seek someone to sort it out for us.
I will get a company in to do a quote for the work needed. My husband is going to contact our freeholder (as the law states the land owner has the responsibility to get rid of it and we are leaseholders). Hopefully they will share the cost with us (they own the other flat here) and may also decide to persue a claim against the gardener as they are a big company and have a legal department.