Knotty problem solved

CAN you kill off knotweed (Mail)? The town council I work for as a gardener had complaints about Japanese knotweed in a park. The

area had been cleared of housing in the Fifties, but knotweed planted in the gardens survived.

Several times over the years it was sprayed, with limited effects. After a complaint, I decided to spray again, with little hope of success because it was the wrong time of the year: September when the knotweed was flowering.

To my surprise, the following year not one shoot reappeared. All of the knotweed had been eradicated.

Knotweed in a graveyard had survived all efforts to destroy it for a generation, so I sprayed it at the same time of year, with great success. STEPHEN LEWIS, High Peak, Derbys.