Help! Is this Japanese Knotweed??

[Norrisskipjack]

Argh! We have this super aggressive climber in one of our boarders coming through from next door and I’m terrified that it’s JKW. Can anyone confirm for me?

If it is, what on earth do I do? We only bought the house in January so there was no sign of it when we moved in

I'm not particularly a gardener however we have a climbing weed in our garden that grows extremely quickly & is from our neighbour & it's bindweed. The leaves look very similar to your photo but then I've never seen Japanese knotweed! The bindweed we have does however have white flowers.

I think JKW has red stems?

No it isn't.

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Thank gawd for that! Thanks everyone, I definitely didn’t panic. Obviously

That's bindweed. It's also v difficult to get rid of.

Looks like knotweed. We have to regularly deal with it sneaking through from the neighbours garden. Twists round our plants but thankfully we have none growing on our side. But it requires a lot of work keeping it off our plants.

It's indeed. Every tiny piece of it will grow into a new plant. I use as little weed killer as I possibly can but I make an exception for bind weed. Get it to climb up sticks in your border then gather the top growth into a plastic bag while the roots are attached. Squish it when it's in the bag to damage the leaves and help the take up of weed killer which you spray into the bag. Seal the bag with an elastic band
Leave it to die and choose weed killer that will travel into the plant and kill the roots.
When you've got rid of as much as possible this way, be vigilant over the next few years and pull it up whenever you see the tiniest piece emerging. It'll stop eventually and you've only used weedkiller the once. This was Alan Titchmarsh's method and it worked for me.

That's not Japanese knotweed sanscerre. JK doesn't behave like that. It looks like thick bamboo but you can crush the hollow stems with your fingers.

It’s bindweed not knotweed @aweedropofsancerre

electricmoogaloo you are correct! Apologies I meant to say bindweed

Yep, Bindweed is a pain in the neck but it is not dangerous to the house or notifiable like knot weed is. You need to use a glyphosate based weed killer, "Round up" is a common brand name but you can get own brand stuff that is the same but cheaper. Keep spraying the bits you see. I have neglected my garden this year and now need to do war with the Bindweed once again. It gets less bad each time though.

Thanks everyone, it’s grabbed hold of my lilac tree so I need to get on it this weekend. There’s other plants in the boarder I want to save so I’m not keen on using a weed killer, will continuously cutting it back to the stump work? I’m friendly with the neighbour but she’s an older lady so if I offer to go and cut it back she will he fine with that, will that work?

if you keep pulling it and cutting it back it will reduce over time.

You need to pull the roots out of the ground not just cut it back.

I'm overrun with the stuff. It's roots go down really far and also travel laterally. Try not to let it flower.

The problem with trying to dig it out is that any tiny bit of root you leave in place will regrow to a new plant. It is possible but not easy. Putting the leaves in a plastic bag and spraying in there as someone said upthread will stop the weed killer affecting other plants and should kill the roots so the whole plant will die.

In Kew gardens, they grow the bindweed up a cane wigwam and, I guess, treat the top growth with a systemic weedkiller. Haven't tried it but looks like a good idea, digging it out is near impossible.