Why railway embankments and canal banks around Widnes suit knotweed, and what to check along your own boundary.
Knotweed travels as fragments of root and stem, and linear corridors suit it well. Widnes has several: railway lines on embankments, the St Helens (Sankey) Canal corridor, and the edge of the Mersey estuary. Anywhere those meet back gardens, a stand can come close without anyone being aware of it.
Walk the back boundary in spring and watch for purple-red shoots, then look again in summer for tall hollow canes above the fence line.
The person who owns the land it is growing on. A survey of your own side shows whether it has crossed the boundary, and that record is what you hold if you need to raise it.
