Bought house and inherited plant. What is it? The leaves are about 2-3ft across and almost circular. The are palmate and highly denticulate. Bright green and very slightly shiny. On end of stems. Stems have some short sparse coarse hairs. Flower comes on a huge central spike. It isn't rheum palmatum (chinese rhubarb) as the leaves are much more divided. The plant is up to 6 feet high and the spike of the flower grows 3 ft higher than that. It either runs under ground or seeds as we now have 3 of them 10 feet apart. It is quite good looking but I am wondering how invasive it is. Do I say "Coo, lucky me" or run for the weed killer?
Eek! Yes it does. I will get the weed killer out at once. I can do without anything toxic. Thank you for your reply. Tina
Welcome tinawales.Good to see someone else from Wales. Giant hogweed is a real menace. It seeds along the banks of the rivers. The local authorities will actively come and spray it on public verges to stop the spread. I can thing of no other weed in the UK that gets as huge as this.
Thanks fellow rain sufferer....Not near a river and on a dryish bank - however I note that its new chum has come up in the bog garden. I am off to the farmer's co-op to buy an nifty boiler suit with hood before donning a mask and getting after the brutes with a big spade. Never seen it before - thought it was quite handsome until it flowered so disappointingly. It fitted in with the other shrubs/babmboos etc that my predecessors had left. Should have realised it also fitted in with the weeds they hadn't bothered to eradicate...Ho hum.
I wouldn't go near it. Do not get any sap on your skin. Buy some glyphosate weed killer ( Roundup).Use exactly to the instructions. Do not be tempted to make a stronger mix! Spray all the leaves. It is not an instant weed killer. It works by the plant taking in the weed killer right down to the roots. Only then will you slowly see signs of it dying. It will be OK for a while. But you must stop it from seeding. Quote from wiki.... "The plant produces 1,500 to 100,000 flattened, 1 cm long, oval dry seeds" Garden very grateful for this rain! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_Hogweed
