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[SJC <indexer AT localnet.com>]

ROFL.....

"It's not invasive in clay soil"......

I'd be forever suspicious of whoever told you that.  It is invasive here 
in clay soil, sand, gravel, rich soil, compost piles, wet soil, dry 
soil, salty roadsides, and it's working hard on the exposed granite 
ledge roadbed a quarter mile to the south of here.  It sends up new 
shoots from far-reaching rhizomes, tiny bits of rhizomes, tiny bits of 
tiny root off the the rhizomes, stem pieces, just about any other way it 
can.  It makes stands so dense nothing else will grow, for sure.  Also 
ruins the ground there for several years if one is lucky enough to 
eradicate a batch of it.  Keeps the ground loose so not even good for 
erosion control.

Deer won't eat it, even when nothing else is green:  bad sign.

When I moved here, I had none.  Apparently a truck moving fill soil lost 
some up by the mailbox (very salty roadside where winter/spring runoff 
flows, mixed gravel on upper side, clay below).  Within one year there 
was a patch 20 feet across, this in shade under tall ash trees.  It has 
taken 14 years to beat it into submission and that means never going to 
the mailbox without a tool in hand unless there is snow on the 
ground....and the diggings we put in the fire barrel, having seen what 
happened when a neighbor put a pile of knotweed clippings on his compost 
pile......

"softest stem" is also not a term I'd use with this stuff.......

Whoever told you that hates you, Bill!

Susan Jane, in Maine

Bill Jones wrote:
> Yesterday I discovered Japanese knotweed.  It has the softest stem for 
> cutting, and one stalk grows to be huge!  Today I researched it some 
> online.  It's not invasive in clay soil, nor does it sprout from seed in 
> the north, or without pollination from a separate male plant.