The hogweed imperial guard

The giant hogweed (or pigweed) grows abundantly when given the chance, which is rarely. The field of saplings blogged about earlier were all exterminated a few weeks later. When wanting to do U-turn I drove up a dead-end street with my bike and what did I encounter? A small slope (3 meters deep and 40 meters in length (?)) tucked away between a busy road and a wide ditch taken over by the hogweeds in all their arrogant and otherworldly splendour. They look like a squadron of Daleks or an invasive army of imperial guards, majestic in their intergalactic colonizing prowess. With a standing height of 2+ meters the hogweed is a plant that behaves like a tree. My shabby photographic skills do not do justice to their towering presence. In a country where all nature, plants and animals, are harmless and benign the giant hogweed is the Dutch equivalent to a hungry bear roaming at large.