Don’t allow these thugs to take over your garden
Published 12:01 am Thursday, May 5, 2011
We’ve all planted something in the garden we regret. It’s usually some gorgeous perennial that expands to the size of a minivan or a ground cover that chokes out every living thing around it.
Years ago, I installed a lovely pink primrose (Mexican evening primrose) along a stretch of sidewalk. To this day, I’m still fighting its spreading underground roots dozens of feet away from where I first planted it. These overly enthusiastic eager beavers are often called aggressive or invasive plants.
I just call them thugs.
Aggressive thugs try to take over your landscape. Invasive thugs have larger goals. They escape from the garden into the natural environment and quickly squeeze out a lot of other plants in their path.
Purple loosestrife, in spite of its beauty, is a notorious invasive thug. A single plant can produce 2 million seeds a year. It chokes out native plants and creates an impenetrable forest that depletes resources for all kinds of wildlife. It’s so dangerous that its sale, growth and transport have been outlawed almost everywhere, including Washington state.
Here are a few more invasive thugs.
Silver Queen artemisia: Shades and squeezes out slower-growing perennials; spreads by underground rhizomes. Dig up as many of the rhizomes as possible; soak soil to make pulling easier.
Golden Creeping Jenny: Looks like a weed; stems lie on ground and take root. Pull from the garden.
Gooseneck loosestrife: Shades out less-aggressive plants; spreads by underground rhizomes. Dig up any time of the year; use nonselective herbicides.
Creeping buttercup: Crowds out any plant near it; aboveground runners root on contact with soil. Pull young plants, dig older plants.
Of course, if you absolutely love a specific thug, and it’s not illegal to grow, just be prepared to watch it like a hawk and do a lot of digging and dividing.
For a list of other aggressive and invasive plants to watch out for, go to www.invasive.org.
Joe Lamp’l is host of “Growing a Greener World” on PBS. For more information, visit www.joegardener.com.
