pulling bamboo

[derien]

I was talking to my brother, Hawk, the other night and when I mentioned the Japanese knotweed he asked if that isn't the stuff that Japanese monks use to meditate on, because if you sit really still and concentrate you can literally watch it grow. And I'm thinking now he might be right. I pulled a double fistful yesterday and did the same again, today. And maybe I just missed them yesterday, but some of them today were nine inches high already. I wonder if it will continue like this forever?

Comments

[kryptyd.livejournal.com]

You'd think it would exhaust the resources of the earth at some point, but from casual observation it does seem to go on and on. We had a huge specimin of it out the back of the Edwardian-era building I used to work in, and it was in poor-looking, shallow soil, and I presume it was planted in the Edwardian era when it was some rich person's house (and not in its subsequent life as a tenement and then broken up into offices), and yet every year it came up equally strong and weirdly perfect looking, the perfectness being of course because no bugs will eat it outside of its natural range. Sorry, that was a very long sentence. I don't like knotweed.

[derien.livejournal.com]

Did they plant this stuff in Edwardian times? Actually, they did a lot of stupid stuff then, so I guess it's probable! :)

[kryptyd.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I don't want to make you feel like Sisyphus, but our landlord at that building had the stuff pulled out, stomped, and burned a few time each summer to no avail!

[derien.livejournal.com]

One of my coworkers (Moose) tells me that one thing professionals do is take a backhoe and dig the earth out, burn it so there's nothing living in it at all, then put it back. Which Eor thinks is a horrible idea because then you won't have all the good bacteria and the worms, but I think if you then add a little farmed soil you'll have those propagate back in right away.