Hogweed

[CatPower]

After a wander with a neighbour through the jungle that is my back garden (working on it, I promise) we found what seems to be a pile/bunch/chunk of hogweed in a flower bed. The bed itself is half covered with bamboo (to screen the LPG tank behind it) and some bedding bushes, and right in the middle there's the horrible dark green hairy-looking thing.

I've been on wikipedia (font of all knowledge) and found out it's incredibly irritable to skin. I have an almost-five-year old DS and obviously don't want him getting hurt by it.

What's the best way of getting rid of it once and for all?

There are (at least) two hogweeds: native hogweed and giant hogweed. The native hogweed has leaves about 20cm long. Giant hogweed is much bigger. Both are irritating to the skin, but I was told the giant hogweed is much, much worse. According to Wikipedia, if the stem has bristles on it, then it's giant hogweed.

Anyway, I have used glyphosate (Roundup or similar) to get rid of native hogweed. Roundup will kill anything it touches, however, so you need to target really carefully on a still day. If the hogweed is really tied up with the bamboo, you can add the Roundup to some dry wallpaper paste, then paint it onto the leaves directly.