Yuccas. They are very sharp anywhere you touch them. I guess that's why they are called Spanish Bayonets!

Purple heart (Tradescantia pallida). It took me years to get rid of where I'd planted it in the ground, but I love it in a pot.

Roselee your garden is awesome. I saw it on central texas gardener. My grandmother had Purple Heart and it was very aggressive.

This is my first year growing purple heart outside of a container. I'll have to see how it goes on how aggressive it is. Good info to know.

My plants are just those vines that you can't fully dig out but you want them out of the particular area. You pull and tug and things look good for a while but as the growing season goes and everything looks green so the vine is camouflaged, you don't notice it until it has re-established itself.

The mint that the previous owner planted. It's everywhere now.

Linda

Nate, thank you! :-)

Gardenper, I've seen large beds of purple heart in commercial settings surrounded by concrete and it's beautiful when used in that way, but in a garden bed with other plants it gets out of hand before you realize it because out of sight it's forming a deep, thick, solid mass of fleshy roots and if you try to dig it out every tiny piece that might be left keeps trying to grow. But there's not many of us that haven't tried planting it in the ground anyway even after hearing the 'war stories'. Yes, mint is another one that is hard to remove, but it smells soooo good when you water it or step on it!

So far the things that have been difficult for me are: Coastal grass "aka" Bermuda, and Greek Oregano. The grass grows under the wood of my bed. I do all I can to keep it in check. So far it is not taking over. The oregano seems to have exploded. I am going to cut it back greatly. What was a tiny 4 inch transplant in October is now near to 3 feet long by a foot wide, and 6 inches tall. Getting taller by the day. I have since ripped a plug out, and put it into a pot. It seems that it not even shocked. It started growing.

Mint has not been a problem. I keep it cut back, my wife loves mint tea so I keep a steady supply for her on hand.

Ruella ran me out of the house. It hit me in the eye with an exploding seed one day. I did not have problems with the wandering jew.

Vinca vine.

Hands down the Trumpet Vine. I loved it, it was beautiful! But it started coming up every where, I cut it down and dug it up two years ago, dug up roots for 20', seriously. Now everytime I plant something I still run into Trumpet vine root. And I see a few new shoots in randon places, right next to perennials I want to keep. It will never go away!!
I also planted spearmint in my 4 x8' raised herb bed, in one corner, thinking I could control it. By the next spring, I had shoots coming up everywhere in the bed. I had to dig up the whole bed to get the roots out. I haven't seen any this year, so it is gone. I love the mint, and I plan on putting in a 4 x 4' raised bed just for the different mints I see at all of the nurseries.

Oh darn! I wanted to add some purple to my garden, so I was thinking of buying purple heart. I'm glad I read this before I did. I do have an oval bed in my front yard that is surrounded by stone. If I plant it there, will it take over the other plants?

{{gwi:19789}}

Ruella was bad for me. I heard it was invasive, but my mother has it and hers doesn't spread that bad, but boy did mine. I've gotten rid of most of it, but it still pops up every once in a while. Had the same problem with mint.

I also had a problem with Society Garlic one time. It didn't spread when I had it planted, but I got tired of it and decided to dig it up and give it to my mother, it started popping up everywhere after that. I'm thinking I want to grow it again, so I'll have to make sure I get all of it up if I ever change my mind.

This post was edited by msrose on Sat, Apr 26, 14 at 13:54

Around here greenbriar is a particular nuisance. Its a prolific climbing vine with thorns that will stab right through heavy leather gloves. It has a tough tangle of roots that are nearly impossible to fully pull up. And it is largely impervious to herbicides like RoundUp

Oops, sorry I didn't see that this was the Texas gardening forum. Good luck to you all fighting your personal plant nemeses.

This post was edited by bob_cville on Sat, Apr 26, 14 at 10:07

I was just posting about this on the perennial forum. My builder put lemon bulbine in my flowerbeds when they built the house last year. I didn't care for the appearance of it so I removed all the plants. Somehow it manged to have hundreds of babies. I can't seem to get rid of it. I can't find anything about it being invasive. It isn't a plant I would recommend.

The builder also planted society garlic. Not sure how invasive it is, but I got rid of that also. I simply don't like the skunky/swampy smell. I didn't find it very inviting by my front door.

Firecracker fern is a cool plant, but it pops up everywhere.

Uh oh! I just planted my first bulbine. I was actually thinking about trying Society Garlic again, because I couldn't remember why I got rid of it in the first place. Maybe it was the smell.

I have always had bulbine be well behaved and it never germinated. It does grow from pieces of roots but it did not range far afield.It branched in it's spot creating a Ring as it aged. I lost mine due to the cold a couple of years back but not this year.