Japenese Knotweed and Invasive Weed Eradication - Change of Career - Advice Needed!

Hi Guys,

Have been gardening as a career for 18 months now. Never needed to advertise as too much work keeps flowing in from recommendations.

I enjoy being outdoors mowing lawns, cutting hedges and weeding etc but the big problem is that work is intermittent/lean during periods over the winter months, causing some financial issues.

Was thinking of taking courses for practically all of the weedkiller licences, including over waterways, plus maybe insecticides training too.

I have a passion for weeds and removing them and aim to be an expert in the eradication of the most invasive weeds such Japweed, Himalayan Balsam, Giant hogweed, Rhododendron ponticum, horsetails, ground elder, couch grass etc.

It is a rather competetive market, but the prices companies charge are ludicrous, and I intend to undercut their prices.

Do you HONESTLY think I'm wasting a lot of money paying for these courses? Being a web developer in my spare time should help to get a high ranking site.

Any thoughts and opinions would be most welcome.

 

What's the cost of insurance/indemnities for JK eradication?

I've just seen a site for proposed housing development that's contaminated with JK mown down by the owners last week, with total disregard to the consequences for developers, plus possibly JK clearance sub-contractors as they've only left the residual areas of JK around the perimeter of the site un-mown.

 

Mowerman. I would say, go for it. It will probably cost a couple of thousand, BUT, when you have the certificates and licences you will soon get plenty of work from councils all over Britain.

 

Wow.....wowing it down?! Talk about financial suicide! They could end up in serious trouble with authorities, not to mention the potential ramifications that could unfold when houses are built on the plot and start to fall apart. The land owners had better have good insurance otherwise they'll be liable for damage for housing destruction costs. They are their own worst enemy, show utter contempt and complacency and should be reported to the local council or Environment Agency.

A typical eradication procedure (spraying/injecting/burning cut stalks - but never rhizomes onsite) is around the several thousands of pounds mark and there is a lot of red tape involved).

Typically a five year contract basis is the norm, although smaller infestations may not take so long to eradicate. A person I know has stumped up £2500 for a five year eradication plan and has only a few stems near to a garage down the bottom of her garden. Another has paid £3000 for similar circumstances. Prices also depends on where you live in the country. Removing the stalks to a hazardous waste site (if you can find one that will accept it) will cost quite a lot.

Digging it up entirely and burying it onsite... well that would need a serious excavator and a trained professional and would cost thousands upon thousands. But not a route I intend to go down. Just hardcore weedkiller available with the right certification and the follow-up processes.

 

Thank you very much for the words of encouragement, they are much appreciated!

Will also need to fork out for a more professional-looking van but once the next season starts and the cash comes flowing in, I'll be in a better situation to nail these courses.

Was thinking of doing the courses in the Autumn but there's little point as most of the hardcore weeds will likely be going into hibernation mode by the dates the courses are available, plus winter time can be quite hard on the pocket unless a load of hedge work conjurs up like last winter, amongst doing other part-time work.

 

Is this the sort of project you'll relish taking on?

The pic is at the perimeter of a housing development site and a watercourse runs right through the middle of a long stretch of Japanese Knotweed, so the roots will also be under the watercourse.

The development site landowner owns to the middle of the watercourse and on the other side owners of a dozen or so houses own the land beyond their rear fences (where the JK is situated) and also up into the middle of the watercourse, but no attempt at eradication has been made so far.

The watercourse has been dredged by a contractor employed by the Parish Council and the material arising spread around the vicinity. There's also several patches of JK where the housing is planned, and all but one (which will be in open space) have been mown down.

That brook can burst its banks after torrential rain, so could wash away anything in the process of being disturbed on the banks, or inundate JK being treated. And to make it really interesting the contractors are all ready for an imminent start as soon as the last conditions of the planning have been discharged, but no attempt at eradication has been made to date.

 

I can tell you a story about Jap Weed that was spread through a councils compost scheme in London. My fishing partner is an EA law enforcement officer and they had a joke about how it became a grow your own JK.
A good example of what goes wrong when council try to make money from composted waste.
The training is worth it as you can't legally use pesticides without them and you can't even use domestic chemicals. In saying that 90% of end users pick up bad habits and never follow the training to the book but it does allow you access to commercial jobs.
It's worth noting near any waterway you also need permission from the EA to apply any type of herbicides. My minds blank on the feet distance from water but it's pretty close.
There's JK where my boat is moored on the Thames and they will have to treat and burn it on site. Sadly though I watched in amazement one guy cutting it down on the bank and then seeing it float down the Thames.
I don't do Jk, I do mostly lawn work and consultation which is where I wanted to be. there are dozens of gardeners and maintenance companies but very few deal in turf management so I grabbed that bit of the market. It's also where I met my companion and she's lovely and even though we are are worlds apart from a social point we get on well.

 

Thank you for the post and pic. The developers need shooting. They'll get their comeuppance once the houses start crumbling though. They are incredibly irresponsible but I suspect that they don't care as many housing developers have tunnel vision focused purely cash from the sale of houses.

It would be something I would take on once I have all the necessary certificates. Can't resist a good challenge

One customer has JK growing in a waterway next to her property. The waterway has high steel walls that are sunk seriously deep after a load of local houses were flooded a few years ago. There are no signs of it in her garden (yet).

Each year, the local council come along and paint it with a tar-like weedkiller, which kills the plants off for the year after one application, but they won't remove it off-site. They just perish and remain in situ, only to come back with a vengeance the next year. The plants must be at least 10ft high at their peak.

Maybe these kind of chemicals (no doubt a hard to obtain glyposhate soultuon) are available only to those with waterways licences.

 

LOL @ grow your own JK. Also, watching it float down the Thames... you must have been in a state of disbelief!

Was taking a load of ivy to the council tip today and noticed an area where you can buy their compost. Wouldn't buy it if my life depended on it. Not just because of JK but all the other nasties that can survive composting.

As you'll know, JK comes from the volcanic regions of Japan and burning the rhizomes to a cinder doesn't guarantee it's dead. The relatively high temperatures of a compost heap would probably make it (and horsetails) jump with joy. Only 0.7g of JK rhizome (according to a government paper) can create an invasion.

I'm aware of numerous regulations about informing the EA of spraying/burning/removal etc and will fully oblige.

You've grabbed a niche in the lawn market, which is great. Around here there are several companies offering similar services i.e. Greenthumb, Greensleaves and others whose names I can't recollect, so competion is fierce and all are about as much use as breasts on a lettuce. I too considered joining the market but scaryfying is such a nightmare, even with a professional machine.... all that moss and thatch, and if re-seeding is necessary, people can't be bothered with watering it.

Once you've got a good reputation, it spreads, so hat off to you for cornering a very competetive market, much like the one I'm going to enter next year, all being well.

 

Believe it of not, you need a license to tackle it, another just to cut it down, another to burn it, yet another to dig it out and don`t even ASK what you need to remove any part of the plant offsite.

 

Finding sites that will accept it seems the biggest obstacle. Most councils will accept hazardous waste such as asbestos, pesticiedes, engine oil etc but when it comes to JK, they tend to throw caution to the wind, which is absolutelty understandable as the process of safely burying it is somewhat labour and financially intensive.

 

Thank you very much for your positive words, they are much appreciated.

Know where you're coming from regarding the winter months... and lean gardening times/ sporadic, sometimes crazy amounts of work all at once, then nothing for a while. JapWeed (seemingly) dies so that avenue of business would be closed for a while until its shoots are well-established. But biennials seedlings such as Cow Parley start appearing around this time of year, so eradication of them may be possible in the Autumn/Winter.

The bigger areas of horseweeds around here tend to shrivel up over winter (at least from personal observation) and re-emerge in April but in warmer parts of the country, they may be present all year round, so that's a good opportunity. Also Rhododenron ponticum is a huge problem in some areas and being evergreen, it may possibly be treatable in the winter... if the weather in fine enough!

You're spot on about being on the first page of Google, would take some doing but I have a few tricks up the sleeve to get it ranking highly. The CheckTrade reviews is a great tip, as well as multiple websites/microsites, like your wasp eradicator has.

Was thinking of taking pesticide training too so may even tackle wasp nests etc. Would be gutted to have to do it to any kind of bees nest though :(

Thanks again mate, your help is most valuable.

Mowerman

 

I've been involved with the selection of contractors onto Local Authorities 'approved lists' and it could be very difficult, requiring years of experience, references, financial records, etc. to gain acceptance.

To avoid the expense of all of that (just before I retired), many LAs were opting to use the Property Services Agency approved list, and advising all their existing approved contractors to obtain approval for that list or they'd not be invited to tender.

Obviously, this favoured larger, well established contractors.