The day of the triffids

The dreaded knotweed, said to knock thousands off the price of one's house if seen in the vicinity, has arrived at Horton Lane Golf Club and is escaping into Horton Lane proper, snapped on the Oak's Day Horton Clockwise last week.

A plant which we once had in our own garden and which I rather like, always having had a soft spot for plants which are successful. Perhaps the result of my days of struggling with cabbages and such like on the allotment, cabbages which needed a great deal of TLC to grow into something edible. Some of this is documented in the other place. See, for example, November 12th 2006 or May 19th 2008. But I can see that as, for example, a park keeper you might be rather cross at having to spend thousands to stop the stuff overunning whatever it was you wanted to grow before its arrival.

And government is firmly on the side of the park keeper with, according to Wikipedia, it being an offence under section 14(2) of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 to 'plant or otherwise cause to grow in the wild' any plant listed in Schedule nine, Part II to the Act, which includes Japanese knotweed. It is also classed as 'controlled waste' in Britain under part 2 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990. If the knotweed doesn't get you, the bizzies certainly will.