The Fight Against Japanese Knotweed Is Heating Up In Torrington

There are way more invasive species in Connecticut than the dreaded spotted lanternfly that everyone is suddenly finding in their backyards, I've found another foreign invader today in Torrington, you may have recently heard of this one too.

Last year one of the other residents of our condo complex in Torrington warned us that our complex was in trouble due to an invasive plant that she had noticed growing along the banks of the Naugatuck River behind our property. She had found Japanese Knotweed, and we listened to her warning. I can tell you one year later that she was right. Over the past year the patch has grown into a field, and it's choking off everything in it's path, with ivy-like growth across fences, trees, and structures. This is a close up that I took of the leaves.

According to the University of Connecticut, Japanese Knotweed can grow to be 6-15 feet tall, with deep roots that choke off neighboring species. I can tell you that it has incredibly rapid growth, and the City of Torrington has cut it down along the banks of the Naugatuck River in town twice this summer. What's left in the wake of a fresh cut are bamboo-like stems and maybe two weeks of respite. Soon more and more come back, and it looks like this in three weeks -

The bad news is that Japanese Knotweed is a survivor, and incredibly tough to eradicate. Mechanical control can take three years, while chemical control can take two.

Japanese Knotweed is native to Eastern Asia, introduced in the US in the late 1800's, and has been a problem here since the 1930's. Nearly 100 years later it's come to Torrington and the Naugatuck River Valley. Ready to prune with me?