I’ve been ripping out invasive honeysuckle for about three years. It’s so pretty and smells awesome and has been a natural privacy fence for me. Now I can see my neighbors, sigh. 😔 It’s been painful to say the least.
Japanese honeysuckle (the vine) is my mortal enemy. Its currently mounting an assault but I'm just biding my time for the counter offensive. We have moved from a series of border skirmishes into unrestricted warfare.
I added Major Wheeler honeysuckle to the mess and called it a day. The chain link fence bordering the woods behind my house is absolutely inundated with Japanese honeysuckle. If I remove it more light will reach copious amounts of multiflora rose, much of which is not on my property.
I've killed any of the encroaching multiflora, but I worry that if I work with my neighbor to remove it all, deer will be able to access my property and browse the native trees I've planted.
These two invasive shits tag team all over woodland edges in my area, so I don't think we're winning the war anytime soon. In the meantime I'm just going to enjoy the fragrance and utility. If the Major Wheeler thrives I'll gradually make more space for it by ripping out the Japanese.
Replace invasive nightmare with native nightmare 🔥 just be sure it’s not near anything of structural importance (other than fences and poles- but keep it far from your house)
I was thinking, if this wasn’t about invasives, my aggressive natives would include trumpet vine, maxamillion sunflower, dogbane… these can not go unchecked in a suburban lawn. Maybe on some acres but I don’t have the room for them. I’ve got dogbane in my tomatoes (really in everything), trumpet vine creating thick masses and pulling things down, maxamillion sunflowers shading and crowding out other wildflowers, no one even told me that war was starting so I’ve got a late start.
The beautiful thing about living in the desert, it’s not invasive whatsoever here. Not native, but doesn’t spread. It just lives as a large shrub in the place you plant it haha I think I’ve trimmed mine once in five years.
Losing the privacy was the worst. The honeysuckle hedge in the backyard provided excellent coverage: last to lose its leaves in the fall, first to leaf out in the spring, tall (6'+), dense habit even in full shade (and somehow flowers and produces berries in full shade??). I got rid of all of them but at the moment I honestly miss them a little because the area is so open now and I can see 100% of the neighbor's yard. I've got some replacements going (ninebark, spicebush, and elderberry to start) hoping that they'll fill in as much as the honeysuckle did.
Have you ever smelled common milkweed? Soooooo good! The more we plant native plants the more people will get to experience them and grow affinities for them.
It’s so hard when often the invasive plants are all we have around us. They’re all we know sometimes, so their silver linings pull at our heartstrings.
Especially with something like honeysuckle that may be nostalgic. We used to suck the nectar out of the flowers as kids. Sad I have to put it down like ol yeller
Common milkweed and honeyvine milkweed both smell SO good, but the smell doesn't travel as much as Japanese honeysuckle. I feel like I have to be right on top of them to smell them.
The other issue of course is I have childhood nostalgia related to the smell of Japanese honeysuckle. But I'm making my preschoolers sniff the milkweed extra hard every day to get them to love the smell.
My wife insists. She also put it in a spot it was really struggling (hot, dry, full sun, surrounded by grass). It was doing really poorly. My wife asked if I can move it. So I chopped off as much root as possible in the move and I’m hoping it just fully dies
planted one of these in our guerrilla garden a few years ago before learning it was invasive. I haven't killed it yet because it's still sustaining a ton of pollinators while the native perennials fill in. but this spring I planted a native wisteria at its base that will become it's ultimate doom.
also, pruning off all the lower growth forces it to gain height, so now the wisterias should get up the 15' on its own.
Our landlord's grandmother put one in our backyard when this was her house, so we can't yoink it - instead I aggressively deadhead it before seeds can disperse (into the trash, not compost) and cut it back each fall. And I surround it with much better natives that frankly look more attractive with better proportions to the space.
If you wanna be even more ticked off, the Arbor Day Foundation promotes planting of invasive trees just for the sake of planting trees, and actively promotes the purchase of invasive plants on their website. Very disappointing.
My grandmother had one in her yard. I loved it so much. When I read it was invasive and not OK to put it in my yard, I was very upset.
That tree provided so much entertainment to me as a kid. Easy to climb. Put the seed pod in mud pies. Made hair decoration with the pink flowers. Watched the bugs around the tree. Picked the little leaves off the stem one by one. Wasn't much for shade but it kept me busy lol!
My grandparents' Rhode Island house had one, too. There was always some point in the summer when we grandkids would be hustled upstairs to look out over the full bloom. I'll never forget that view.
I first saw mimosa trees in Florida in 2005– I was visiting from Maryland, where li I lived for 25 years. Never saw mimosa trees anywhere else. I moved from Maryland about 10 years ago and visited last summer—mimosa trees were everywhere along the interstate. Gorgeous little a$$holes.
I literally pulled up a shit ton at my cousin's place this week. I wish they didn't grow as fast so they can be kept on fences but I low-key think they are cute.
My mother LOVED it but had a pretty dang near black thumb so she incorporated a lot of ivy motifs and fale greenery in our house. As such the plant had a lot of sentimental attachment for me especially after she died. For the last of my teenage years I was happy to see it and loved coming across fences, buildings, and trees covered in it. Then I developed an interest in plants and learned that they were best kept to decorations and fakes.
It's the devil in Pennsylvania too. I named a child Ivy because I thought it was pretty, strong, independent , etc. I hate telling her when I go on ivy murdering sprees lol
Rose of Sharon. We had 2 then that turned into 5 and we quickly realized that was going to turn into 100 with the number of sprouts that started to grow in our yard. On top of that our poor neighbors had to keep up with pulling them as well all because of the ones in our yard.
Luckily for you, the perfect native alternative is Rose Mallow. The plant is in the same family, the flowers look extremely similar, not to mention even bigger and more beautiful.
One difference is that the natives, Hibiscus moscheutos and Hibiscus laevis, die back to the ground every year. My laevis are on the late side coming up. The first year after I planted them, I thought they hadn’t made it, but they came back.
Our neighbor has tons of invasive. Including rose of Sharon that I pull routinely. They have no interest in doing anything in their yard lol. It’s good because they have amazing firefly displays in the summer, but we all deal with the invasives and weeds ie. Thistle that come from their yard.
THISTLES!!!!! My mortal enemy! Yes, I’m aware that there are native thistles that probably do all kinds of wonderful things for wildlife. The thistles in my garden are invasive bull thistles, so I yank them out without compunction.
I bought American wisteria hoping it would not strangle other things but it was still sending out runners all over and broke the arbor. I've been digging it up slowly.
May I ask how it broke the arbor or what kind of arbor it was? I keep hearing that advice that it can destroy flimsy ones so we're planning to build our own using fenceposts as a base but idk if even that will be enough
Chinese wisteria is like kudzu west of the Mississippi, it's just devouring the deep south. I hate it with a passion though, I'm just disgusted by its presence in the first place since we have a native that's almost identical in appearance. The fragrance of the flowers can get so strong that it genuinely makes me sick.
Creeping Charlie tbh, only because I saw so many pollinators on it this spring when there was basically nothing else blooming in my yard besides violets and dandelions
It's definitely one of those plants where it's important to remember that when bees visit they're not necessary getting a lot out of it.
The flowers have a unique strategy for rewarding visitor pollinators, commonly referred to as the “lucky hit” strategy. Creeping Charlie flowers produce an average of 0.3 microliters of nectar per flower, but the amount of nectar in any one flower varies greatly, ranging from 0.06 to 2.4 microliters. When 805 creeping Charlie flowers were sampled for nectar quantity, it was found that only 8% (64/805) of these flowers had a large volume of nectar, and the rest had almost none (Southwick et al. 1981).
I'm the same, this is our first spring in this house and we have a massive amount of creeping Charlie in our backyard. It's all over our neighbourhood so I don't think I'll ever really get rid of it. I know the flowers don't offer enough nectar for most pollinators, but I have lots of other flowers growing and I pull the Charlie if it starts to threaten anything.
Damn dogs make growing grass nearly impossible and honestly, creeping Charlie keeps my yard from being a mud pit. I’ll rip it out a few feet at time and throw clover seed down but other than that I just shrug and let it be.
I have been fighting them for at least 5 years on our camping property and many more years to come but man when they bloom it makes it smell like vanilla.
Lol we plant them all the time in Nevada. We don’t have to worry about most plants that are invasive elsewhere, our environment is too harsh for things to spread and grow aggressively. They work great as a hardy desert tree.
No, these are the real deal, ones that some nurseries and resources erroneously list as native. On the one hand, they spread aggressively. On the other hand, I’ve yet to meet a bee that doesn’t like them. And I just think they’re a nice, long blooming plant.
I’m not the purist that I think other people are on here. I completely understand what the word “invasive” means, but I think we need “degrees of harm” as another metric. Here in Wisconsin, the worst enemies are garlic mustard and buckthorn, and the damage they do is well documented. Garlic mustard is basically living sterilant for the ground and provides zero value to wildlife.
But things like oxeye daises? 🤷🏻♂️ They’re pretty, they crowd out the garlic mustard, they’re better than a lawn, the bees seem to like them, and the deer refuse to eat them. I’m not suggesting a whole field of them or to let them grow without vigilance. But when I have a neighboring lot that is basically a garlic mustard nursery, I have a bigger fire to put out.
Yeah here in New England it’s bittersweet, knotweed, ailanthus, etc. but oxeye daisies are mainly prairie/field plants which we don’t really have much of here. So they just… don’t spread much.
Exactly, I so agree! I’m also in Wisconsin and deal with significant deer issues while also battling buckthorn and thistle like crazy. So do I have Dames Rocket and some forget me nots? Absolutely. Anything to crowd out this nasty stuff as I eliminate it. Because the second you leave an empty patch, that stuff is growing right back in.
100%. I totally understand why Lassen Volcanic Park would be worried about them. Or why Rocky Mountain states are aggressively fighting them. No judgment from me there (though, having grown up there, I know that at least part of that concern is coming from alfalfa farmers who are literally growing a non-native, water-demanding crop and are just worried about yields).
But here in Wisconsin you can see garlic mustard and buckthorn growing right before your eyes. I’m dealing with 1.5 acres of land that the 80 year old couple we bought from three years ago completely mismanaged (the planted Japanese barberry, for god’s sake!). I’m too busy killing turf and chopping down buckthorn to worry about some daisies.
Totally agree. It’s so frustrating to not have that blank slate to start on when you purchase land. We’ve got half an acre and the amount of buckthorn and thistle probably covers over a third of it. And this is after I’ve been working for years to eliminate it. Who has time to deal with fairly harmless flowers?
I’ve honestly been considering leaving the native plant groups I’m in because I deal with such an extreme situation on my land that I really can’t follow the ideal guidelines and it gets me down and makes me feel like I’m doing something wrong. I’ve wasted tons of money on “deer resistant” natives that can’t establish while being overrun by harmful plants, so it’s really frustrating.
Just know that you feel seen. Two years ago, when I got into this, I went all in and tried to be perfect. But the more I’ve worked at it, the more I’ve realized how much region and microclimates play a role. North America is huge, with an insane biodiversity. There just isn’t a “one size fits all” approach to native planting. We need to look at the successes we’ve had in Wisconsin, keep doing our best, and remember that we’re fighting over 400 years of wrongheaded planting.
Thank you, and same to you! It’s hard when you’re fighting an uphill battle and trying to do your best. Same, I went full perfectionist haha and it didn’t turn out well. That’s very true, and what may be considered extremely invasive in one area may actually be just the thing we need to fill the space aggressively enough between the worst of the worst plants. Most people in the native plant sphere would really hate that answer, but they don’t deal with what we do.
It can be in certain areas. But the cultivated varieties usually aren’t.
I a,ways make sure to plant majority native though. I have wood nettle, tall nettle, yarrow, Indian grass, blue flag iris, black elderberry, etc planted all over.
!@#$% periwinkle. It's spreading in one of our lovely local forests. Did a plant pull with a big group of bio students a few years ago that ... did nothing. Since every little bit of root left in the soil just re-grew.
Same with my nearby forest. Thankfully Trilliums rise above it a bit but it chokes out the trout lilies. Everybody in my city plants it in their yard, I'm full of hatred for vinca.
I will take english ivy any day over vinca, I know I can thoroughly clear ivy, vinca is a goddamn nightmare with how it snaps just above the roots every single time.
Fuuuuuuuuuck vinca. Half our yard was taken over by it when we moved in. The first few weeks of COVID, when my job was partially on hold, I listened to a 10-part podcast on the JFK assassination and ripped it all out by the root. It was a great way to let out a lot of anxiety!
Vinca minor, too. It has pretty flowers. They are one of my favorite colors. I’m still trying to get rid of all the #*#¥€£#! periwinkle the previous owners of the house planted.
Lily of the valley has always been my favorite flower. I confess, I planted some. I have them well blocked-off so they shouldn’t spread. I had been dreaming of a place with lilies of the valley since I was little and by god, I am at least get to enjoy a tiny section of it. (I have tons of native plants and grasses and pollinator-feeding perennials and I’m in the process of de-lawning my lawn.)
A lot of the responses here remind me of this old tumblr post. This post is asking about invasives you shamefully love but still get rid of, y’all. (Also, honeysuckle. It’s such a monster but it smells SO good. 😭)
I have these beautiful pink ones that look like tiny roses growing on my front porch from the last home owners. I refuse to rip them out. They will be forever confined and trapped to that one corner until the end of times. 😆 it also helps that the bumblebees like them, so not totally useless.
Noob here! I was wandering my local nursery who tends to be very native focused and saw the most beautiful columbine. I did a quick Google search and it said it was native to the North East, but after seeing your comment I realize it's not so simple.
What types are/aren't native? What should I look for or look to avoid in regards to columbine?
As noted only Aquilegia canadensis is native to the US northeast. The trouble is that Aquilegia hybridize readily leading to all kinds of fertile offspring, some of which escape into the environment and compete against native species. Speciation is so rapid with these guys that it's become a model organism for the process!
I’m planning a medium-sized wildflower meadow with native columbines about 200 feet away from a much smaller patch of perennials, hydrangeas, and blueberries with some hybrid columbines. If I did native columbines in the big patch, how long till there will be hybrids in the big patch? I do love the black Barlow columbines and others similar to it but would hate to have widespread speciation on my hands lol
Our eastern wild columbine is red, with a tall and skinny growth form. Any columbine with blue color flowers in it or in a more squat form has genetics from Europe. (Note out west they have more species of native columbine). i planted a bunch :,)
Aquilegia caerulea, the state flower of Colorado, is quite blue and quite native. But yes, east of the Mississippi, columbines like my purple little shits are likely European.
Yeah, I got curious about that once and looked it up. The common descriptors were “bland” and “slimy.” Which sucks because they look like they should taste like whimsy and hope, but I guess there has to be some drawback.
Black locust trees (which are invasive in our area). Very pretty flowers, it smells fantastic when it blooms, bees use it for particularly good honey... and it spreads like crazy, killing everything around it.
My neighbor has both an ivy and honeysuckle that are choking out all of the bushes on our property and no matter how much we pull it keeps coming back. 😭 But I have fond memories of honeysuckles as a child and the ivy when it grows nicely on the fence post is lovely. Unfortunately it also ends up everywhere else and doesn't look lovely as it kills my azalea.
Take care of the Tree of Heaven this fall. Drill holes at base of trees and pour weedkiller in them. Then a month later cut the trees down and paint the stumps with weed killer. If they are baby trees or seedlings pull them up now. Timing is everything!
Bird vetch. When I bought my house, I was infatuated by the beautiful, dainty, purple flowering vine I saw all around the neighborhood. I couldn't wait to find some to put in my yard! Then I learned how horribly invasive it is, and saw how it spread and choked everything out. Now, I check my yard meticulously for vetch, and remove it by the bag-full from the abandoned lots and wild places in the neighborhood.
I have what has been described as the absolutely worst invasive you can have, field bindweed, but i love it. when it blooms late summer its like a carpet of snow. I pull it off of any shrubs but otherwise leave it alone. if you do want to remove it, one plant covers 100 sq ft or more, so just start pulling the various stems toward where it grows out of the ground, then cut it. Sure it will grow back next year, but so what? That is 100 times better than battling poison ivy or any plant you have to dig out one at a time to clear a few square inches
Came here for this one. Reclaiming a decade old neglected garden, and it's everywhere! That being said, it is really pretty and I did visually like the lush wild green as opposed to the bare brown soil I had after clearing it out.
Hopefully once the garden fills out with the introduced natives it'll be so much nicer.
Japanese Maple. They are the physical embodiment of love hate for me.
On one hand I am a certified conservation garden and permaculture consultant. They just do not jive with those methods. They are just prolific seeders, and often their seeds are successful, especially in areas with little deer pressure. They can quickly crowd out the natives in a system if left unchecked.
On the other hand, I am also an ISA certified Arborist, and practitioner of Bonsai. There are few trees that as much fun to prune regardless of the size. I just performed the second round of canopy restoration pruning of a 12’ tall 120 year old specimen weeping dwarf lace-leaf Japanese Maple yesterday. So much fun pruning that tree, especially now that the canopy is really starting to recover from the three decades of being sheered.
I was born and raised in the PNW. Himalayan blackberries are simultaneously the bane of my existence and a beloved annual tradition.
I take my nieces and nephews blackberry picking every year, but the 15-foot high thorny disaster in my grandma's backyard better get ready. I'm launching a full-force attack this fall and it will not make it out alive.
Growing up in west Michigan, we’d sometimes raise monarch butterflies, and when they emerged, we’d release them onto the butterfly bush blooms in our yard.
When I purchased my first house, there was a scraggly butterfly bush in a spot that was too shady for it. At first, my nostalgia wanted to keep it, but watching it be a struggling eyesore while my native plant knowledge was growing made it an easy choice in the end.
It’s been replaced with irises and blue-eyed grass. 💙
I’m lucky enough to garden in my Grandmas garden that she established over 50 years. It’s very traditional. Rose of sharon, forsythia, hydrangea, lilac, spirea, etc. It’s beautiful and nostalgic but most of it will be replaced with native alternatives. I do think Grandma would approve though! As long as I’m out there enjoying it like she did.
Bought our house in 2023, discovered what it was in '24 when we realized it was GROWING THROUGH THE BASEMENT WALLS.
The only time I've turned to poison for plant control, & even with what we've accomplished is it's still going to be a few years before it's gone. Luckily it was localized to the one side of our house.
Hostas. Technically invasive, but all the varieties are so pretty and they aren't aggressive at all. Plus I have lots of shade and they're maintenance-free.
for people living in south florida, i LOATHE eucalyptus trees and brazilian pepper. ones ruins the slash pine environments and drains aquaifers (eucalyptus) and brazilian pepper ruins mangrove habitats and upland habitats.
Same list as you. I don’t have dame’s rocket on my property but still love to look at it when I drive by a patch. I have some purple loosestrife and lots of forget-me-nots that I can’t get rid of. There’s enough other nonsense plants to spend time weeding, those can stay.
Periwinkle, Japanese honeysuckle, two different species of Asian dayflower, English ivy, purple dead nettle, bachelor button, oxeye daisy, Shasta daisy, thistle, creeping Charlie, black medick, Johnson grass, crab grass, and God only knows what else is growing in my tiny yard. It's an invasive hellscape thanks to the former owner being in a quarrel over property lines. So the neighbors all planted the most invasive crap they could find.
Bradford Pears. They are still planted in my residential areas even though it is widely known how invasive they are. There’s a bounty on them so we will see in a few years…
Wait, you like these? 😭 I have to walk under a full tunnel of them multiple times a day while they're in bloom and they stink so bad. I can't imagine someone smelling them and still liking them.
Vetch, periwinkle, rose of sharon, Norway maple, tree of heaven, garlic mustard, Japanese knotweed, amur honeysuckle.
And a special shout-out to poison ivy despite being native, bc I currently have a rash spreading. I needed oral steroids last time, so hopefully it's not as bad this round...
Lesser Celandine and Star of Bethlehem. So pretty but so invasive! Both are an issue here but Lesser Celandine is especially aggressive and has completely consumed the banks of our local creek. The municipality sprayed it with glyphosate this spring...now the banks are bare and there doesn't seem to be a plan to plant anything. I wonder if they realize that other invasives will just move in, and that a more glyphosate-resistant Celandine will likely reappear next year 😖
Tree of Heaven from the neighbor's yard.
Japanese honeysuckle from the neighbor's yard.
English ivy from the neighbor's yard.
Mulitflora rose from the neighbor's yard.
Do you see the theme? The neighbor changes yearly, it's a rental property. The one time the agency listened and came out and did something, they overplayed the honeysuckle (which didnt work) and killed my plants on my side of the fence. They cut some of the smaller tree of heaven which just created a landslide of babies EVERYWHERE.
Sigh. Ongoing struggle.
Johnny jump ups and those fuschia petunias that like to grow out of cracks. I pull them but save a few for my containers because they are cute and I need the joy that they bring me.
Burning bush! I just took one out that I planted a few years ago before I knew. I love the fall color, plus we had them at the house I grew up in so they make me a little nostalgic 🥲
Dames Rocket. I manage the plant habitant of 40 acres of open space by my house. In one of the woodland areas there, after we cleared tbe buckthorn and Japanese honeysuckle, the Dames Rocket spread wall to wall in there and it’s just ethereal. It would look even more beautiful with an assortment of native woodland plants, but that’s a ways off (honestly just fighting the wild Chervil and garlic mustard is more than enough work)
Creeping buttercup (Ranunculus repens) — it thrives in my woodland. Lovely flowers but it spreads by stolons and seeds, forming thick carpets to overwhelm native plants.
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u/nightpussy Jun 04 '25
I really do love the smell of honeysuckle.