Swansea Bay west · Moderate pressure
West Cross, Norton & Newton
Suburban gardens backing onto the coast path. Small knotweed stands on lane corners, heavy garden-escape pressure on the seaward side.
Streets and places to watch
- West Cross Lane
- Norton Road
- Nottage Road
- Fairwood Road end
These are the corridors where growth is most often recorded — lane walls, verges, brook banks and cleared plots. Individual gardens are not listed.
Towns, villages and places in this area
Each place has its own local guide with a map, area facts and the plants to watch for.
What grows here
Wall cotoneaster
Birds carry the berries from gardens straight onto Gower's limestone cliffs and grasslands, where cotoneaster smothers some of the rarest plant communities in Wales.
Flowers May–June, red berries autumn into winter
Three-cornered leek
Sometimes picked as wild garlic. It carpets shady verges, churchyards and hedge banks across west Swansea and Gower, replacing native bluebells and celandines.
Leaves from December, flowers March–May, dormant in summer
Japanese knotweed
Swansea is one of the worst-affected places in Britain. Knotweed dominates back lanes, railway embankments, riverbanks and derelict plots across the city, and it is the weed most likely to affect a mortgage or a sale.
Shoots March–April, peak growth June–August, canes die back brown in winter