The Weed

In the front garden of our basement flat at 26 Petherton Road there grew a weed. Every summer it came up, thick and tall and it blocked the light to the front room window.

My parents said it was a nuisance, made the room always dark, and cutting it back did little good, it quickly grew back again. My dad tried digging it out, but that did no good either, it still grew back.

It was a thick-stemmed plant with broad leaves, green stems flecked with red and there were knotty sections along each hollow stem. When you broke a stem it exuded a milky substance. Occasionally some of the plants produced a white flower. There was quite a lot of it in some gardens round and about, always were it grew it was to the exclusion of anything else.

My dad did not know what it was. He called it convolvulus though he was not entirely convinced about that. Uncle Denis said you’ll never get rid of that stuff, the only thing you can do is cover the garden with creosote, that’ll kill it, but it will poison the ground so nothing else will grow for a few years either.

Dad was not keen on that idea, but eventually when all else had failed that was what he and Denis did, and it did kill the weed, and nothing else did grow for some years, until a few tufts of scratty grass began to poke their way through.

The weed, that they called convolvulus, was Japanese Knotweed. Very pervasive, very difficult to kill, and with a white flower that looks a bit like that of convolvulus which will be why the confusion. No one knew about Japanese Knotweed in them parts in them days.

These days I assume it has all gone from the area, though I keep my eyes open. I think now if any comes up you are probably required to get it professionally dealt with.

A weed is nothing but a flower in the wrong place. Not sure where the right place is for Japanese Knotweed. Japan? Horrible stuff.

photo by Andrew Wilkinson on Flickr

Dave