Potential garden thug

[bellegrove]

Hi I need help identifying a plant and maybe any suggestions on how to control it too!
It's popping up all over my small garden. It grows as a tall single stem, leaves appear red at first then green as they mature. As far as I know it doesn't

produce any flowers so reproduces vegetatitively? I can't pull or dig it out as it's growing very close to trees so I've resorted to chopping it down at the base whenever I spot a shoot.

 

[cpp gardener]

It is Japanese Knotweed which is a garden thug of the first degree! Very few herbicides work on it. Your best bet is glyphosate (I know how unpopular it is but it works the best) applied several times a year to new sprouts. It will still take several years to bring it under control.

 

[bellegrove]

Hi
Thanks for this. I'm not sure it is JK. I did check for this and the stems are not bamboo-like, not segmented. And the leaves have a serated edge, not smooth. I will look again though

 

[pepper]

I have Japanese knot weed and have been battling it for years now. That doesn't look anything like it to me.

 

[cpp gardener]

Then it's another Persicaria/Fallopia species. Probably almost as hard to get rid of. Can you get a picture of just the weed?

 

[Sheal]

Welcome bellegrove.

It's definitely not Knotweed - a picture below...

The stems of Japanese Knotweed have a slight zig zag in them.

I wonder if it's a sucker from a nearby tree?

 

[Owdboggy]

I cannot see the image.

 

[cpp gardener]

Well phooey!
Japanese Knotweed is not a problem here, so I'm not familiar with it and was going by the stipules on the leaf-bases. Agree with Sheal it could be root sprouts, possibly a plum. Of course, I've been wrong before.

 

[pepper]

I know it's not, but it reminds me of my spiraea bush.. if it was one stem. But it also reminds me of a fruit tree. It could be from squirrels burying something around the yard they get at a neighbors or birds pooping seeds they get from the neighbors. I constantly have things growing because if this.