A second giant hogweed infestation was found just a few metres from the kiddies’ playground. We sprayed perhaps 80-100 plants. We then checked out a report of a single giant hogweed plant at Prospect Road, and dug that one out in a jiffy. After checking the tire pressures on the truck – three being about 20psi too high and the fourth about 10psi too low – we were off to Mosquito Creek in William Griffin Park; a popular dog-walking trail to the west side of the creek and a less-used trail to the east side formed our basic boundary, with the giant hogweeds – roughly 100 – growing all along the creek sides and islands in between. Taking extra care as this is valuable fish habitat we stem-injected or sprayed the plants. That took about 2 hours, as we had to negotiate slippery boulders and watercourses as well as find and expose the plants hidden in the dense undergrowth. After a lunch break we headed up to Windsor and St Ives, whjere a reported giant hogweed had disappeared due to drain and road works, so afterchatting with the site foreman we quickly treated a small clump of Japanese knotweed growing in very close proximity to the intended disturbance limit. Then off to Balmoral School where we treated 11 giant hogweeds on a trail running around the school grounds, But nothing quite prepared us for what we found on the shortcut from the school to Everglade/Evergreen Place – a veritable hogweed forest some 50m x 10m or thereabouts, most plants around 2m tall but a couple flowering at 3m of so, with the shortcut trail running through. The shortcut had been closed off with some plastic snow fencing and a “Danger Do Not Enter” tape at both ends of the trail, but it was clear that this had been breached at least a few times recently. After snipping off the flower heads and bagging them, and removing a few face-level leaves here and there, we set to work. About an hour and a half, we estimate we treated several hundreds of plants over an area about 50m x 10m –somewhere in the order of 500 or more plants, we pretty much gave up trying to count – with sprayed plants identified by a splash of orange paint. One of the local homeowners came out to see what we were up to, and mentioned the school kids keep using the short cut; hopefully the giant hogweed plants will be dead before school starts again. Pics to come later today.