A dangerous plant

It's also commonly said that kissing's in season when gorse is in flower.

 

Plenty of deadly plants in nature, should mostly leave them. Giant hogweed is invasive though. I reported some knotweed a few weeks ago, with the exact coordinates: they sent me an email saying they couldn't find it.

The most common dangerous one along there is water hemlock, once you notice it youll see it everywhere. eat some leaves and youll be off to heaven permanently within half an hour

 

Around here, knotweed is present along most waterways. I've also seen Himalayan balsam though it's much less common. Thankfully not seen the hogweed.

 

I remember in our younger days, when we were poor and couldn’t afford a bottle of wine, I found a recipe for gorse wine. All you had to do was to wade into a gorse bushy area and pick the flowers and take them home and make what turned out to be quite a decent drink. The only trouble was, the only place where we could pick enough flowers was in an open grassy area of the city where people took a stroll on a sunny day. So off we went with our little buckets and began to pick the flowers off these gorse bushes that reached to our shoulders. We were quite a distance from the path as we thought the flowers would be cleaner there. After a few minutes along the path came a lady with her grand daughter. “Hey granny, what are that man and woman doing in the gorse bushes?” “Never mind dear, come along!”

 

What does it taste like, is it coconutty?

 

It was fifty odd years ago and we no longer have the little book, which offered different recipes and which we annotated as we went along. But I do remember that it was light and very pleasant. Another good one was rice and raisin wine, which would have given a bottle of sherry a run for its money.

Here’s someone else who recommends it…

 

Here's a recipe for Japanese Knotweed wine

Japanese Knotweed Wine: Recipe - Backyard Forager

 

It better be strong as you’re going to need all the help you can get when your mortgage provider and insurance company tell you that you are on your own…

 

There's giant hogweed all along the river banks in Paisley. You see it every year driving through there.
I was visiting my daughter last month and we walked across the bridge to the local Morrisons, which is at Abbey Mill [Paisley was a mill town, cotton and thread manufacturing etc, so loads of waterways] and it was already about 4 feet. I took photos, as I had that kind of phone at the time, but I can't get them on here to show the pix.
Skunk cabbage is now becoming a problem here - we have it appearing in the burn along the road every year. I don't know if it's escaped from the nearby NT garden, or from further upstream.

 

A house up the road has Japanese knotweed in their front garden. They've been battling for years to get rid of it. Industrial strength chemicals and a black plastic sheet anchored on top. Everytime I walk past I have a look for signs of new shoots coming up. The house is up for sale....

How they got it in the first place is a mystery.

I'm going past it this morning and will have a look.

 

Mind you don't catch it !....

 

Strange. I've been quite successful removing patches of knotweed in my fields. But you need to follow the right sequence - spray once when in full growth in May/June and again when sending stuff back for dormancy in Oct/Nov. That's what a study done by Swansea university showed. And it had to be glyphosate.