It’s time to eradicate those unruly invasives from your garden and add some new choices to your plant inventory. Famous for stepping beyond garden boundaries, invasive exotics wreak havoc on natural areas. We have all seen how English ivy smothers wildflowers and topples shade trees or how Japanese honeysuckle literally strangles shrubs and small trees. Leaving old garden standards behind is difficult but necessary if our natural parks, forests, and fields are to have a future.

Invasive plants turn into landscape thugs by out-competing the surrounding natives. In the mid-Atlantic region, they tend to put their leaves out earlier in the spring and lose them later in the fall than their native counterparts. This extended growth period gives them a significant advantage over the native species. In addition, these plants have no natural enemy—neither insect nor disease—and quickly produce abundant offspring. Many invasive plants are unpalatable to deer and quickly take over where deer are abundant.

Before choosing a native plant alternative, first think about the characteristics of the invasive plant you are replacing. Using Japanese honeysuckle as an example, its sweet fragrance or vining habit might be the desired characteristics. So, get rid of the honeysuckle and replant with fragrant summer bloomers like sweetbay magnolia, Magnolia virginiana, a tree, and add the summer-blooming leatherflower vine, Clematis viorna, if you like the vine habit. The new combination gives you everything you liked about the honeysuckle without its devastating weediness.

Purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria), beautiful but invasive. Photo © John M. Randall, The Nature Conservancy, used with permission.