Four O'clocks appear to be impossible to eradicate. I've recently been preparing an old garden bed for new plants, and have been trying to get rid of all of this, but it keeps on coming up everywhere, from huge tubers and small sprouts..... The tubers are quite deep and especially seem to want to be near the foundation of the house. I keep digging and digging. And now it is ruining my new garden as I have to keep on trying to weed it, damaging the new flowers I've just planted.

the standing yew came with the house. it took up the entire front bed, and overhung the sidewalk by a good 8". we tried pulling it out, and cracked the concrete wall around the bed, so we just cut it down...revealing a huge old peony, a pretty warm-pink rose (that finally died this year) and, much to my dismay, an established trumpet vine that had been growing IN the yew.

third year here, and I'm STILL pulling up shoots.

I love my bamboo (in a steel bathtub) and my LoV (in the strip between foundation and alley walk) and my melissa (which I trim for a border hedge) and my cleome, which seed EVERYWHERE (glory be- I can sit and watch them unfurl for weeks!)

honestly- the only things that had to go were the mildewy old fox grape (my apologies to the ghost of the previous owner, who made table wine from it for 60 years) and the re-bar and baling twine arbor, the equally miserable old roses (tried Safer methods, tried copper, admitted defeat, pulled out everything with a fungal disease, and removed the mulch. MUCH better this year, despite the humidity!)

and the lawn. GODS, I hate turf grasses! useless, lame looking, invasive, pointless...ick. bleck.

little by little, the aguja I rescued from a cul de sac one day is spreading, and in another three years, I shouldn't have the problem any more :)

I have loved violets since I was a kid. I can't get rid of them in my front yard, which I have made a yellow garden, and I can't get them to take in my backyard where I wan't them. Let's face it, a weed is just a plant that can't take dirrection!

Most of these plants mentioned are fine if you put them in the right place and watch out for them.
My piok obiedient plant is between my house and brick walkway, with some white hosta that blooms at the same time. I divide each of them (not the house or the walkway!!) and give some away every year.
My red monarda (beebalm) is interspersed with some tall yellow heliopsis that blooms at the same time (they're blooming right now) , and, every single year,I give lots and lots of monarda away, so I don't have too much.
I thin my variegated vinca several times every year. It makes a great groundcover under my oriental lilies. Lilies like to be in sunny places but to have cool "feet."

About 15 years ago I planted a wisteria right next to my house, in partial shade. The darned thing has bloomed once ( 1997) In all that time. It is huge and in the way. I just cut it way back and I'm Digging it up and moving it to a sunnier spot next cool day! I am still fighting my Grandma's mistake, She brought home a piece of Japanese Knotweed ( false Bamboo) and planted it in the backyard in 1936 ( I think it will outlive us.) Also my mothers mistake, She planted mint in the border garden! I think that was in 1970! I planted Houttuynaya (sp?) 2 years ago don't regret it yet, because I love to use it in arrangements! But I will keep an eye on it!
Lee

Lee, have fun digging up that wisteria. My husband had to attach ours to his truck and use all the force of his 4-wheel drive to get it out of the ground. This was our last resort after having dug and dug and levered and sworn. I love wisteria but won't plant it again ...

a little off topic --

Hey DiggingtheDirt:
I'll be down the "Cape" from August 6th thru the 9th, staying at a cute B&B in Hyannis, the Sea Beach Inn. I saw your offer of verbena bonariensis...... Can I take you up on it? I'll be happy to bring you something in return-- how about some nice pink Malva or some heliopsis or some lilac monarda? You interested?

Hey Debra -
I'll gladly pot up some verbena for you. Can't take any more plants, though, as you'll see if you stop by.
I'll email you about details.
Cheers - DtD

My strange experience with Ajuga is this. We have a side of our house that has pine forest next to it. It is impossible to keep the weeds out and I'm sick of trying. We planted ajuga to take over the area. Guess what. It never took. I was stunned.

My husband went bulb happy all around the property. The place looks like a fairy land in the spring, but after the blooming period, ugh! All those floppy leaves - it drives me nuts. No more bulbs!

Magazinewriter:
Do you have a photo of your heliopsis and red monarda combo? I have heliopsis in spades currently and have been thinking of adding the red bee balm as it has the same water and sun needs and blooms about the same time..... Would love to see how yours looks? Can you post a photo?

COREOPSIS
when we first moved in about 5 years ago akind neighbor gave us one plant of coreopsis. It took over my whole garden before I started to transplant it up on a steep bank. Every year I promise myself that I willo take out every speck of that stuff in my garden but I always relent in the fall; but no more. This year it is all going . I am keeping only the moonbeam ; that is under control.

NancyAB,
I had the same problem (invasive plant that won't invade), but with bishop's weed (Aegopodium). I think I'm the only person in my town who can't get it to take over. It's struggling in dry shade, which is astounding.

I'm so glad I read about these invasive plants -- I have been trying to decide where to plant my Chinese lantern which has been in a plant for over a year. I've decided on a larger pot! THanks for all the info

I wish I had never planted mint in my yard. It's every where in my flower beds and even though I rip it out every year, the roots travel and manage to come up elsewhere.

As for the coreopsis, that is so huge this year that I plan on splitting it.

I would have to say the darned artemesia that I got at a swap a few years ago. It is trying to take over NH now. I pull as much of it as I can each year and it is still here.

I have ajuga and I happen to like it. I pull it if it goes where it shouldn't be since it is pretty easy to pull out.

I also like the lily of the valley and sweet woodruff.

I am beginning to regret planting the ribbon grass though, which has a climbing rose interspersed. The rose was supposed to be a 'Paul's Himalayan Musk' and after 3-4 years, this is the first time it has bloomed (even after being moved to a sunnier spot) and it looks more like 'The Fairy'. I was very underwhelmed, so I think this fall it may get the shovel.

I also have violets which come up everywhere. That I could have done without as well.

At the house we just moved from I planted a small yellow perennial foxglove. It self seeds all over the place even when other things struggle. Trouble is, it's so pretty when it's blooming.

Campanula punctata 'Plum WIne'. Fortunately I discovered it was going to be too aggressive (and not especially colorful) after the first year. I ripped it all out this spring. Teeny pieces are showing up still that I continue to pull out, so that reinforces to me that I did the right thing. Its root system is intricate and powerful.

On the other hand, I have another campanula punctata 'Cherry Bells' that has been out by the road (w/ total neglect, salt, weeds) for a few years. It is filling in nicely finally and I don't think it can escape into lawns or other beds. THere is a 10-15' buffer of woods between the road and my beds and lawn. I think I'm safe. :-)

ditto violets! they're so darn cute in the spring but don't do it!!!

I may regret fallopia japonica variegata. It was safe (doing NOTHING) in the shade. I moved it to a little more sun and it is exploding. I plan on moving it back to more shade in the fall. Hopefully, that will keep it on the "keep" list.

No doubt about it, the #1 on my list is columbine. They're gorgeous, and I love them, but I don't have the heart to pull out a new seedling (and they're EVERYWHERE!) in case it has one of those irresistable blooms that guarantees their continued existance. I just can't treat them as weeds!!!

Second on the list is cleome... lovely, but such a PITA!

CHINESE LANTERN!!!! Beware! There is NO way to get rid of it, once you have it. If anyone knows a way please post it. I have used Extra Strength Roundup. I stick a hole in the ground next to every shoot I see, and flood the hole with RoundUp! It just pops up next to it. Never never plant this thing near anything that you want to keep!

heb37, you need to put the roundup on the leaves, not in the soil.

wendy,
re: variegated fallopia. Same here, in a cool shady position it's pretty much contained 3-4 footer, in a warm part-sun to sun it seems like it wants to be a 6-7-8 footer with no limit for width.
Good thing about it, in a spring those bright fire red sprouts are highly visible.

Plants I wish the PREVIOUS owner hadn't planted:

Norway maple - she planted one which is now 50 years old and HUGE. Nearly a 3 foot trunk diameter. Unfortunately, she then decided to take a seedling or 5 and spread those around. Now there are 5 other large trees. Not to mention the HUNDREDS of seedlings and saplings everywhere. The eradication plan is well underway. EVERY last one will be removed except for the original huge one. It is just too damn big to pay for removal, and it's also a beautiful tree.

Oriental bittersweet - Yes believe it or not but ladies who liked to use the orange berries for crafts actually PLANTED this stuff intentionally. OMG, it is everywhere. Like the Norway maples, the eradication plan is well underway.

Violets - Yes, the previous owner and neighbor lady planted these too. Sigh.

Vinca minor, Shrub honeysuckle, Burning bush, Japanese barberry....the list goes on.

So far nothing that I've planted, including cleome, catnip, cilantro and others that reseed prolifically, even come close to what I "inherited" when buying this house.

Someone mentioned mint. I love mint but being forewarned I decided to grow it in a container. Last year, I just buried the pot in a raised vegetable plot for the winter and dug it out first thing in the spring. I was just walking by that bed and noticed two little stems of mint coming up in that bed. That is amazing to me, since it was late fall when I buried it and early spring when I got it out.

Pachysandra! I pulled it out a couple of years ago and it keeps coming back - I can't seem to get rid of it.

I didn't plant it, but Spreading Dogbane. I know it's native, and the flowers can attract butterflies, but the stuff wants to take over my perennial bed. I have no problem with native plants - I leave most Milkweeds and Queen Anne's lace, plus wild strawberries and yarrow, but this Dogbane is the bane of my garden!

Wow, Daria, I'd never heard of it before. It looks like a beautiful plant, so thanks for the warning!

This thread scares me deeply - I have gotten used to my sandy and dry soil which keeps all these plant brats in check, and have planted anything I wanted with no invasion problems.
We are moving to a new home, and I am forseeing a couple years of a painful learning curve!

I didn't plant them, but tenants who used to live upstairs (and are thankfully transplanted themselves now! :-D) planted asiatic dayflowers. Yikes. Pretty, tiny little blue flowers which last...you guessed it...a day, but boy do they spread!

I have to keep on top of thinning them, but they are just everywhere.

Nightshade/bittersweet and bindweed are other not-planted-but they-grow-here-every-year invasives too. Doesn't help the next door neighbors are apparently into growing lovely waving banks of weeds right up against my picket fence. Sigh.

Question, though: there's a plant which also grows wild. Leaves look just like mini-roses, but I've never seen a bloom. Grows fast and tall, has thorns too.

Any idea what it might be? I can take a picture if that will help, unless anyone knows what it could be without it.

Native rosa multiflora? In a shade it will not bloom, but spread by runners and by ground layering.
Picture will definitely help.

I haven't planted anything invasive at my new house, but I have purple loostrife and bittersweet we are trying to get rid of. Based on my experience with my mother's gardens, I would say never plant the following:
- Ajuga (will take over the lawn)
- Mint
- Spiderwort (crowds out everything else)
- Lysimachia Punctata (should be banned)
- Virginia Creeper (shows up everywhere, forever)
- Vinca (crowds out everything else)
- Euonymus
- Chives

DH will not allow me to plant violets (I may have to sneak a few in, I love them) or yarrow (Achillea). Monarda and poppies have also been a little out of control, but not so bad I'd ban them from the garden. I love lily of the valley and can't get it to grow, never mind be invasive. I must be doing something wrong.

Have any of you done "interventions" at garden centers when you see someone buying something highly invasive? I have, a few times, with ajuga. Just say no.

Recently did an "intervention" Fallopia Japonica variegated. Called a gardener at the brooklyn botanic garden on the spot (a friend) and let him explain how invasive it can be. The nursery owner removed it from display while I was there, she had a sign explaining how it was not the invasive japanese knotweed. I think she hates me now! LOL

drippy, I have the same problem with Tulips. Some were beautiful this Spring and some are just stems! I am going to rip out those stems today! ha. I'll show them who's boss. And then I have a few tulips that bloom great but you can't see them because other bushes have covered them.

My garden was inherited when I bought this cottage. One side is wall to wall ivy which I liked because there's chicken wire fence between me and my neighbor and ivy helps cover it. BUT it's choking all the large perennials. For the past two days I was under the bushes, ripping out ivy that was stuck on the plants. And then breaking off branches that were damp and moldy looking which I think was caused by no air flow.

I like vinca better than ivy.

And there's these plants that are spread by tubers. The come up looking like the hostas but the hostas have a root ball. I ripped out tons of them cuz I remember last summer the hostas were moldy looking. Again, I'm thinking these darn invasive plants suck the life outta everything.

And then vines! My back yard has a pergola AND an arbor. Those vines attach themselves to everything.

And dandelions. hate them too.

BTW, another spring of finding sprigs of mint in my veggie bed where the container was sunk for the winter. *sigh* I am keeping my eye on it. I wonder if I should try to overwinter them as houseplants instead of putting them back in that bed again?

my new cottage has a garden that has EVERY one of the invasive ground covers names above: vinca, ivy, pachysandra, ajuga, mint... and the list goes on. the only one driving me crazy (first real summer in the new house) is the ivy. Some of the mature shrubs are being choked by it and last August there was fungus on a lot of plants. I'm thinking because they can't breathe from their roots.

Anyway, I started ripping up and cutting thru the ivy to leave a large circle around the root ball of the bigger shrubs. I know it will cover the area again, but I'll keep ripping it out and bit by bit hope to rip out more or it as time passes.

but I could not believe the strength of the fiddlehead ferns I tried to thin out. OMG, I thought I'd need dynamite to rip these plants out of the ground. Have decided I hate them.

{{gwi:222534}}

Cornus candadensis - bunchberry

It seemed like such a quaint and different and native and cool plant to get, but omg it is really aggressive. I wanted it as groundcover in a shade and filtered-sun shrub border next to a woodsy area. And it most definitely is covering the ground. I just didn't think so much and so fast.

However, having said that, I think I will let it continue its journey. Its too far gone to remove now. I suspect its the type of plant that the tiniest root left behind will start a new colony. And its not bad looking. And it will reduce the amount of purchased mulch for that bed. It will be a nice foil to naturally occuring leaves and pine needles. I will end up with a more casual natural look. I think that's what I was going after. so I guess its okay.

So now that I have vented about it, I guess I don't totally regret planting it. am just amazed at how aggressive it is and wanted to include the warning.

> I will end up with a more casual natural look. I think that's what I was going after.

LOL! That sounds like me ... what was I thinking.

I've never beena ble to get bunchberry to survive, I've tried it a couple of times (admittedly, buying tiny plants at the end of season sales). What's your secret, wendyb?

I wish I hadn't let my neighbor's perilla seed itself in my garden. There must be 100,000 seedlings out there, inserting themselves in the middle of all the other plants. It was beautiful, but not worth the effort of finding and pulling all those seedlings.

> I wish I hadn't let my neighbor's perilla seed itself in
> my garden. There must be 100,000 seedlings out there,
> inserting themselves in the middle of all the other
> plants. It was beautiful, but not worth the effort of
> finding and pulling all those seedlings.

Interesting to hear you say that. I bought a red perilla last summer from Mindy Arbo's Cotton Arbo-Retum, after admiring it there. She told me it would seed freely, and she wasn't kidding! Just this weekend I noticed a gazillion little blue/red seedlings coming up. I don't think they'll be too hard to pull, but I think I'll cut off the tops before too many go to seed *this* summer.

I looked at the dates of this thread and got confused. How did this thread get to be 100 posts in one day? And I'm sure i saw it before today... oh, May 18, 2005! LOL

You are on Cloud 9 eh! BTW itwas a fun swap and this is a great post!
I have enough pacysand tiger lillies for an army and will forever be tearing up the dirt with virginia creepers! along with Ivy, Euonymus and Mamosa trees and Red Japanese maples all thanks to the previous owners GREAT (or lack of) Gardening choices! 10 years and still yanking away.

I've never beena ble to get bunchberry to survive, I've tried it a couple of times (admittedly, buying tiny plants at the end of season sales). What's your secret, wendyb?

interesting. I got a pm from someone on the same subject... survival. that's very ironic. Maybe there's hope mine will die off for me and I won't have to pull it!! their point was heat tolerance. I just looked up some stuff on it and lo and behold, its a zone 2 - 6.

I guess that's why. pushing the zone on the other end... that's a new one.

Now that this thread has been revived, Don't plant petasites japonica!!!!! 2 plants put in 4 years ago now cover over 200 square feet! and have run into my neighbors yard. I'm digging out the invaders in her yard first then working on mine. This is in a full sun, dry spot, I thought the dry would contain it a bit. Never again!!!!! It's gorgeous and tropical looking but what a bugger to get rid of.

I wish I had never planted kiwi plants that are supposed to grow in my zone. First of all after a few years they took off and are growing out of control and taking over my deck. The fruit they produce doesn't taste that great, but at least the birds eat them in the winter. I suppose if I was a strong man I could attack it every spring and that is what it needs, an all out attack!

I don't understand this thread! I love everything I've ever planted except the things that haven't grown well. The more invasive and prolific a plant, flower or tree, the better I love them!

Ooh, originalvermonter, is it a fuzzy kiwi? I have a volunteer, which I cut to about 6" in spring. It's ... vigorous, but I hadn't thought it might become a pest. Oops, I think I've given away a couple of these, too. Do I need to send out letters of apology? LOL, maybe I'd better get a lawyer.

Spedigrees, how long have you been gardening? I think it took me about 6 or 8 years to realize I'd planted some monsters; I had to move to another town to get away from, among other things, wild poppies and that low-growing speedwell that doesn't quit.

Don't get me wrong, it's not that being happy isn't a good thing!

I've been gardening, after a fashion, since 1973 when we bought our house and acreage, where we still live today.

We also owned a second house and yard for about ten years, as an investment property, and I gardened there too.

Plants that do well make me happy. Plants that no one can kill make me ecstatic. (Providing that these flowers were something I liked to begin with.)

Plants that withered and died, or did poorly, are those I regret planting. And actually I don't regret planting them; I regret that they did not thrive.

Just throwing in my comment that I love it when threads get revived!

nothing I have done but, the previous owner of our home obviously loved spreading plants!! we have approx 15 of them taking over! some I can lift like a carpet? We have absolutely no idea what they all are, as we are not flower people, some are lovely, some horrid! as we are new into the house in September, we are letting things grow and trying to Identify or decide if we like them. I am glad we have done this as I have found, strawberies, raspberries and Blackberry bushes, so far, and I know many people hate, blackberries, as they are invasive, but I love them! one man's meat is anothers poison! and was extatic today when I found them growing in the woods behind our house as well, as they are my Favorite fruit. I used to walk around my village for weeks during the harvesting season for blackberries and alway filled my freezer, never any left by Feb, yummy! yummy! our plan is to lay most of the areas with the creeping stuff (haha) to lawn which is more invasive but will at least let us be able to cut it!!

The kiwis I planted aren't fuzzy and the fruit looks like a large green grape. I had to plant a male and a female plant in order to get fruit. You may be all right. Mine grew slowly for a few years and then they took off. If I had been aware of this I would of known enough to trim them every year before they took off. Heather38 you are so lucky. Some raspberries are primocanes. These are great because you don't have to hand prune 2 year canes, you simply mow all the canes that came up in the spring down after they bear in the fall. Looks like you have some research in your future. If the strawberries aren't wild you should probably rototill half of them this year to rejuvenate the bed. Next year I would rototill in the other half of the bed. If the berries are wild then you must have great growing conditions for strawberries. I love blackberries too!!

Whew, thanks, Orig-V.

I love blackberries too. I haven't planted the domestic variety but we have a hilltop full of wild blackberries. The past two rainy summers made for bumper crops. I love all berries, but blackberries are my favorite!