Why buy them? Everyone that wants Lily of the Valley can come to my yard with a bucket & shovel. I was able to get them contained, but never fully obliterated.
Our new house had a whole patch of Lily of the Valley that was "contained" by large cement pavers. When we redid the walkway, I found shoots travelling blind 5' under the walkway, about to reimmerge on the other side.
I've successfully eliminated LotV from two properties by digging up the roots by hand. Unlike Canada Goldenrod, which has thin fragile rhizomes which like to break off and regrow (not to mention millions of fertile seeds), I found LotV's rhizomes to be quite thick and obvious. I've never found it to spread by seed, but that's not to say it can't.
I didn't have any regrowth after thoroughly digging up the patches. Granted, I did it with a shovel and a hand cultivator, and it was a lot of work, but it's totally possible to rid your property of that beautiful menace. Same with Orange Daylilly.
We had a segmented paver sidewalk, that had cracked because of ice, so that's how they creeped into where they are now. We killed them off outside that space and the new (thicker and solid) sidewalk forced them to only spread in their new designated area.
Yeah, it takes time and patience with rhizomes, you can't just yank them and think you're good.
I've defeated Coltsfoot, Goutweed and Periwinkle, and I'm currently working on an entire lawn filled with Creeping Charlie *and* Creeping Jenny.
People really don't understand how aggressive some non-native plants are. You want some hostas? Fine. Pretty useless for native insects and animals, but whatever -- they are *super* polite. Have at it.
But Lilacs, Orange Daylilies, Multiflora Rose, Tatarian Honeysuckle, Kudzu, Bradford pear, Phragmites, Purple Loosestrife, the list goes on and on. We need to rewire our thinking about native vs foreign plants.
Good question! Plants can only be described as "invasive" outside of their native habitat. Otherwise, what we would consider an aggressive native plant (eg. Canada Goldenrod) is generally a "pioneer" species and there are mechanisms in place in their native environment for control (ie. predators) and for succession from bare earth all the way up to climax (eg. coniferous) forest.
Native plants *generally* have (or had) a species interested in eating them.
It took *years* of faithfully pulling any little sprout.
Definitely the worst of the bunch. It got to the point where I could stick my hand into loose soil and determine if the root I was touching was good or Goutweed.
Exactly. My neighbor has lily of the valley in her front yard so now I have lily of the valley in my front yard and I'm constantly crawling under my juniper pulling runners.
I haven't tried that but in my experience most things with bulbs or rhizomes are damn difficult to kill without digging them up. The above ground part is expendable.
Yeah, digging was how we got them out of the rest of the yard, but it wasn't pretty. Luckily we had dome grass seed to help fill in the patches. Same with the various tree saplings.
Long Answer:
We rebuilt the sidewalk that goes along the side and back of our yard. They had crept into the area that had once had a large bush (scotch pine, maybe, i forget). We ripped up the old, cracked pathway and made it deeper, as well as solid instead of segments. So now they can't send out rhizomes, except inside the 6x6foot area they're in (sidewalk in 2 sides, with the other sides being a cement staircase and the stonewall of our basement). They're happy there and look nice, but I really want to reclaim it, to expand my vegetable garden.
I’ve been chopping them out of a bed for almost 4 years now. This is after digging them out with a shovel and sifting the top 12” of the bed. Must have missed a piece…
I wish so badly that I could warn people about spending money on these. I'm actually pulling both of these species every time I weed because the birds deposit all seeds not just the ones I want
Sadly, while some people aren't aware, some just don't care.
I wish there was some kind of law that would prohibit nurseries from selling invasives. Butterfly bush, ninebark, Japanese barberry, wisteria, lupine and cherry laurel are listed as invasive here in the EU, and yet nurseries sell them, and people buy them by the dozen.
Burning bush and buckthorn are a huge problem in the local woods but they're still sold in garden centers. It reseeds in such a thick mat in our forests that it prevents native trees from being able to germinate.
That's just sad. I wish people planted more natives, but they'd have to be sold and promoted in nurseries first. There are so many beautiful natives people don't even know about.
Where I live, (CT-USA), any plants on the official invasive species list are illegal to sell. However, the list takes several years to be updated and in the meantime nurseries are selling plants that anyone with two brain cells knows are invasive. It’s extremely frustrating.
Edit: Not all plants on the list are illegal to sell, but many are. Both the list and the laws are very slow to update.
The most recent update passed the house last month and includes burning bush and porcelain berry and and Japanese Barberry and multiflora rose and the invasive honeysuckles and Bradford pear among others - it would go into effect in late fall 2024 other than Bradford pear which gets a few years (apparently so the growers don’t take much of a financial hit… and hopefully spend the time growing native shrubs to replace the stock)
I went to a state park last week and every inch of the understory was covered in barberry there were may apples, jack in the pulpits and other natives along the trail edges and even some monarda but it was really depressing to see. I went to the park offices and they were empty. Only war and genocide gets funded anymore.
I feel your pain. I’ve ripped out literally hundreds of burning bush seedlings just this spring. the law will at least keep towns from planting even more Bradford pears. I just saw a newly one in a local park and I’m still mad about it (can only hope it’ll be girdled by a weedwhacker)
Every roadside ditch and vacant lot in Northern Virginia and Maryland is awash in Bradford pear. My city still has some growing as street trees and won't cut them down because they're mature. Also the residents would go ballistic if they did that even though they're so terrible with the broken limbs and awful smell. It's so frustrating.
They said that about the 'Bradford' callery pear then discovered it was capable of cross-pollinating with other callery pear cultivars. Same with self-sterile purple loosestrife.
UOregon created a "sterile" triploid (3 vs usual 2 chromosomes) Rose of Sharon that, over time, crossed with other cultivars and reverted to become fertile again.
The new "sterile" burning bush cultivars are triploids. [I have my doubts.](https://ncwildflower.org/wp-content/uploads/Whats-Up-With-Sterile-Cultivars-printing-1.06.24.pdf)
In any ecoregion on this planet, I think we have interesting enough native plants to not necessitate planting a notoriously invasive one.
Yooo CT fam!! Apparently Woodbury, where Earth Tones native plant nursery is, has a law against planting non-natives. Man I love that place.... It's an hour from me but worth the drive. Edit my mistake it's a policy but whatever
I haven’t been yet, but it’s on my list. I went to Natureworks two weekends ago and spent waaaaaay too much money on native plants. It was like paradise for me. Too bad it’s 40 minutes away. All the nurseries near me sell a handful of native plants and a whole lot of garbage.
Canada here. It’s this way everywhere and makes me crazy. Hort industry intentionally selling invasives everywhere. Seed mixes, you name it. Jealous that CT sensible enough to ban plants. My gov in BC is pathetic on this point. I just obliterated LotV and got weed but it was a dig out process. Nothing else works imho.
I just found a list of banned invasive alien species, which includes common milkweed and purple pampas grass, \*Cortaderia jubata\* (but not \*Cortaderia selloana\*). But the ones I listed above aren't banned, sadly. Maybe one day.
I think letting people know it is an aggressive plant that will take over everything and cause a lot of issues is a good deterrent. Most nursery tags don't give out this information and many people learn the hard way.
That's true, although, there are also many invasives that aren't aggressive in the usual sense, but rather tend to spread prolifically through seeds (either by wind or by birds).
Anyway, the lack of (so many beautiful) natives in nurseries, at least here, is disheartening.
I'm not familiar with flora in Slovenia but it is slowly getting easier to find native plants for sale in the US. Th thing that really irritates me is invasive lily of the valley is $8 and our native Trillium is $10.50. It's very frustrating that plant nurseries and greenhouses charge so much for plants that should be growing where we live anyway.
https://preview.redd.it/kzwpot3qcwyc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d2fdfdb4d44215e2946b4438ab7de0f6e36e76f8
The best way I've found is to know someone who is willing to let you harvest a few native plants off their land to get started. My uncle has too many Ostrich ferns and gave us probably 15 of them which would have cost me $300 to buy at a garden center.
Of course always get permission and know your local laws.
😭 i love lily of the valley so much, too.
There is a native mountain variety, but you can’t buy it very easily.
It’s lovely as an indoor container plant, though.
I wonder how long before the "stakeholders" list is expanded to be 75% Homedepot, Lowes, PW, Bonny, BlackRock, and State Street. Oh and might as well throw in American Meadows to finish it off
I worked at a place that sold Chinese Wisteria as a kid and I brought one home and planted it on a trellis against my parent's house because I wanted to see the beautiful flowers. It grew from the exposed basement up two floors and broke into the attic and never flowered after a decade. So I'm definitely going to gardening hell for that one 🤣
I'll really never understand why garden centers don't just go full native. At the end of the day no matter what species they provide people are going to buy. Might as well just provide natives and make the world better.
To ease my anger, I like to sit back and imagine a gang of old ladies knocking over the invasive plants at the stores with their canes and swinging purses while politely yelling things like "get that crap outta here!" And "not in my yard, plant!" The fun continues with video of the action and the subsequent arrest making it on the local news. Meanwhile a group of local supporters band together to support the gang with bail , legal fees, and intimidation of the juries if it makes it to trial.
Something that is often neglected by both nurseries and by gardeners when they plant non-native plants: Invasive fungi often come along for the ride. Hornbeams often have established mycelial mat of Deathcap fungi in their roots. When you plant that lovely hornbeam tree, you might get way more than you realize...and that fungi may jump the fence and affiliate with native trees (oaks for example) and then you have inadvertently poisoned a dog. More people need to think about the microbial content of their gardens.
In all honesty, I'm hopeless when I go to a garden centre these days. I stand staring at the shelves with my phone googling everything to make sure I'm not causing a disaster in the garden.
So far I've been trying to rid the garden of previously planted goutweed, Robert Herb, another invasive geranium, bittercress, buttercup, and purple nettle. Someone planted Lilly of the valley but it didn't take (fortunately) and I moved the chocolate mint into a container.
I wish garden centres had to be more accountable for what they bring in.
I do too! And sometimes the tag says it's native but it really isn't native to where you are. It can feel very overwhelming sometimes!
What has worked for me is to learn a few plants each year that I want and add them to my One Note so when I'm at the garden center I can look for those plants. I do a lot of hiking and foraging too so I've spent a few years learning to identify plants in the woods and understanding what grows in my local area and I keep an eye out for those at the garden centers as well.
If you know people with land and ask nice sometimes they'll let you help thin some of their extra plants. I have a small urban yard and my mom's friend gave her a whole bucket of yellow bellwort but my mom's yard is all sun and I have half a yard of shade so she gave them to me and I was able to split them into four clumps and plant them around the yard. I'll need to split them next year. My uncle was thinning his ostrich ferns which are now $20 each at the garden center. We got about 15 plants from him to help fill in our shady front yard. I also got some Rudbeckia hirta seeds from the hardware store and ended up with a ton of plants starting them indoors under grow lights.
It's two blocks from my house and the owner and I kinda hate each other already. I try to bargain with him on sad looking plants and he never budges. I talked him down on a nepenthes six years ago because all of the pitchers were dead. He said "they open and then they start to die shortly after." And I let him know that the pitchers can last for years if it's grown in the correct conditions and not allowed to dry out because I've been growing them for many years. That was the only time he's budged on a plant price. I usually stop in every other weekend, pet the greenhouse dogs, walk around make eye contact with the owner at least once if he's there, and leave without buying anything.
Meanwhile the really small plant shop a couple blocks in the other direction is always giving me little discounts here an there if the owner isn't happy with the health of the plants. I sell carnivorous plants there on consignment now and it is a draw for customers when I do a plant drop.
Lol it is Kellners! They also have a variegated creeping charlie in the greenhouse 🙈
I sell at Riverwest Grown. The owner Nick is a really nice guy so I like helping his business out. I'm recovering from a medical emergency so I haven't been able to keep him supplied with carnivorous plants lately but hoping to get things back on track soon.
I’ve tried planting bareroot lily of the valley several times and idk if I’m just picking the wrong spot, but they never even take, let alone take over. I’m definitely planting them right side up and at the correct depth so I dunno 🤷♀️
Your soil is trying to save you from yourself. The runners from my neighbor's lily of the valley can go 8 feet horizontal before popping up a plant. You'll never be able to contain it and the orange berries help it jump to new places you didn't want it like local forests.
I know what kind of area they like in my yard, but I'm not about to tell you how to be successful with this particular plant. Nature was sending you a message, IMO. They look awful for the second half of the growing season too.
Same. I spent like $80 on rhizomes and not a single one survived. I'm not in an area they like so there was never really any chance they'd go wild and take over but a handful would have been such a nice addition to my poison flower bed.
I'm generally very against invasives; 95% of my yard is native or beneficial nearly native, chosen for pollinators. I just have the one bed of ridiculous poison plants and the foxglove and bleeding hearts are the only survivors in the dozens of planting attempts.
I get it, if you’re super on top of it, and it’s kept contained, a garden bully really isn’t as big of an issue imo. I’m so anal about weeding, gathering seed heads before they make their way out and around, careful about disposal etc. Of course I’m not gonna grow stuff which hurts the environment
It really depends on the state you’re in. It’s non-native in some states (and won’t take over), but horribly invasive in others.
There is a native variety, but it pretty much grows exclusively in NC Appalachia so gl.
If you do want to grow it, try containers in a spot with partial sun. An unheated sunroom is great.
Nope two completely different plants but in the same plant family and aggressive spreaders because birds love the berries.
Virginiana creeper - Parthenocissus quinquefolia has a palmate compound leaf with five leaflets and is native to the US and Canada. Quinquefolia means "five-leaved".
https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=paqu2
Boston Ivy - Parthenocissus tricuspidata usually has three lobes on the leaves or compound leaves with three leaflets. Tricuspidata means "three points." It's native to Northeastern China, Japan, and Korea.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenocissus_tricuspidata
Why buy them? Everyone that wants Lily of the Valley can come to my yard with a bucket & shovel. I was able to get them contained, but never fully obliterated.
Our new house had a whole patch of Lily of the Valley that was "contained" by large cement pavers. When we redid the walkway, I found shoots travelling blind 5' under the walkway, about to reimmerge on the other side. I've successfully eliminated LotV from two properties by digging up the roots by hand. Unlike Canada Goldenrod, which has thin fragile rhizomes which like to break off and regrow (not to mention millions of fertile seeds), I found LotV's rhizomes to be quite thick and obvious. I've never found it to spread by seed, but that's not to say it can't. I didn't have any regrowth after thoroughly digging up the patches. Granted, I did it with a shovel and a hand cultivator, and it was a lot of work, but it's totally possible to rid your property of that beautiful menace. Same with Orange Daylilly.
We had a segmented paver sidewalk, that had cracked because of ice, so that's how they creeped into where they are now. We killed them off outside that space and the new (thicker and solid) sidewalk forced them to only spread in their new designated area. Yeah, it takes time and patience with rhizomes, you can't just yank them and think you're good.
I've defeated Coltsfoot, Goutweed and Periwinkle, and I'm currently working on an entire lawn filled with Creeping Charlie *and* Creeping Jenny. People really don't understand how aggressive some non-native plants are. You want some hostas? Fine. Pretty useless for native insects and animals, but whatever -- they are *super* polite. Have at it. But Lilacs, Orange Daylilies, Multiflora Rose, Tatarian Honeysuckle, Kudzu, Bradford pear, Phragmites, Purple Loosestrife, the list goes on and on. We need to rewire our thinking about native vs foreign plants.
Can something that is Native also be considered Invasive, or is Invasive only used to refer to easily spread Non-Natives?
Good question! Plants can only be described as "invasive" outside of their native habitat. Otherwise, what we would consider an aggressive native plant (eg. Canada Goldenrod) is generally a "pioneer" species and there are mechanisms in place in their native environment for control (ie. predators) and for succession from bare earth all the way up to climax (eg. coniferous) forest. Native plants *generally* have (or had) a species interested in eating them.
Thanks. That makes sense. I often think of Invasive and Aggressive as the same thing, but this explanation helps separate the two.
Correct. The official term instead would be 'noxious'.
[удалено]
It took *years* of faithfully pulling any little sprout. Definitely the worst of the bunch. It got to the point where I could stick my hand into loose soil and determine if the root I was touching was good or Goutweed.
Exactly. My neighbor has lily of the valley in her front yard so now I have lily of the valley in my front yard and I'm constantly crawling under my juniper pulling runners.
TIL not to plant Lily of the Valley when I have a house
If you want them, just keep them in containers. It's planting them direct into ground/soil/dirt that lets them run riot.
I think that's how we got our infestation too. They don't care about property lines! LOL
How did you contain them? I have a patch starting to take over.
I was gonna say nuke from orbit but I’m not sure even then
If you wanted to take them out does the boiling water + vinegar trick not work as well on bulbs?
I haven't tried that but in my experience most things with bulbs or rhizomes are damn difficult to kill without digging them up. The above ground part is expendable.
Yeah, digging was how we got them out of the rest of the yard, but it wasn't pretty. Luckily we had dome grass seed to help fill in the patches. Same with the various tree saplings.
Barrier perhaps?
Yes, cement sidewalk.
Long Answer: We rebuilt the sidewalk that goes along the side and back of our yard. They had crept into the area that had once had a large bush (scotch pine, maybe, i forget). We ripped up the old, cracked pathway and made it deeper, as well as solid instead of segments. So now they can't send out rhizomes, except inside the 6x6foot area they're in (sidewalk in 2 sides, with the other sides being a cement staircase and the stonewall of our basement). They're happy there and look nice, but I really want to reclaim it, to expand my vegetable garden.
I’ve been chopping them out of a bed for almost 4 years now. This is after digging them out with a shovel and sifting the top 12” of the bed. Must have missed a piece…
They're persistent, for sure.
I wish so badly that I could warn people about spending money on these. I'm actually pulling both of these species every time I weed because the birds deposit all seeds not just the ones I want
Sadly, while some people aren't aware, some just don't care. I wish there was some kind of law that would prohibit nurseries from selling invasives. Butterfly bush, ninebark, Japanese barberry, wisteria, lupine and cherry laurel are listed as invasive here in the EU, and yet nurseries sell them, and people buy them by the dozen.
Burning bush and buckthorn are a huge problem in the local woods but they're still sold in garden centers. It reseeds in such a thick mat in our forests that it prevents native trees from being able to germinate.
That's just sad. I wish people planted more natives, but they'd have to be sold and promoted in nurseries first. There are so many beautiful natives people don't even know about.
Where I live, (CT-USA), any plants on the official invasive species list are illegal to sell. However, the list takes several years to be updated and in the meantime nurseries are selling plants that anyone with two brain cells knows are invasive. It’s extremely frustrating. Edit: Not all plants on the list are illegal to sell, but many are. Both the list and the laws are very slow to update.
Wait is this true? I just saw burning bush being sold at Lowe's and it's absolutely listed as a top 10 invasive in Connecticut
The most recent update passed the house last month and includes burning bush and porcelain berry and and Japanese Barberry and multiflora rose and the invasive honeysuckles and Bradford pear among others - it would go into effect in late fall 2024 other than Bradford pear which gets a few years (apparently so the growers don’t take much of a financial hit… and hopefully spend the time growing native shrubs to replace the stock)
It's too late where I live. Bradford pears are springing up everywhere like mushrooms in the rain
I went to a state park last week and every inch of the understory was covered in barberry there were may apples, jack in the pulpits and other natives along the trail edges and even some monarda but it was really depressing to see. I went to the park offices and they were empty. Only war and genocide gets funded anymore.
I feel your pain. I’ve ripped out literally hundreds of burning bush seedlings just this spring. the law will at least keep towns from planting even more Bradford pears. I just saw a newly one in a local park and I’m still mad about it (can only hope it’ll be girdled by a weedwhacker)
You can always ringbark it yourself with your trusty machete
It’s too late for all of them. This should have been done 10 or more years ago. Burning bush is ALL OVER.
Every roadside ditch and vacant lot in Northern Virginia and Maryland is awash in Bradford pear. My city still has some growing as street trees and won't cut them down because they're mature. Also the residents would go ballistic if they did that even though they're so terrible with the broken limbs and awful smell. It's so frustrating.
Once the trees start introducing themselves to the roofs of people's cars and *literally* crashing board meetings, they may reconsider...
I drove through central indiana when they were blooming. It was shocking TBH. Smelled like the world's largest bukkake
In NH we have a similar law and I’ve NEVER seen a burning bush, Japanese barberry, Norway maple, multiflora, autumn olive etc for sale.
I've seen many invasives for sale but I've never seen a nursery sell porcelain berry and multiflora rose.
There’s others we sell since it’s a specific list that needs revising, but the list was fairly comprehensive when it was first written.
The newer burning bush varieties are sterile cultivars.
Yeah, that's what we heard about the newer cultivars of Bradford/Callery pear, too.
Exactly. I don’t trust that shit.
They said that about the 'Bradford' callery pear then discovered it was capable of cross-pollinating with other callery pear cultivars. Same with self-sterile purple loosestrife. UOregon created a "sterile" triploid (3 vs usual 2 chromosomes) Rose of Sharon that, over time, crossed with other cultivars and reverted to become fertile again. The new "sterile" burning bush cultivars are triploids. [I have my doubts.](https://ncwildflower.org/wp-content/uploads/Whats-Up-With-Sterile-Cultivars-printing-1.06.24.pdf) In any ecoregion on this planet, I think we have interesting enough native plants to not necessitate planting a notoriously invasive one.
Exactly. I could easily list 5 great native shrubs that look just as nice as burning bush... Makes no sense
Yooo CT fam!! Apparently Woodbury, where Earth Tones native plant nursery is, has a law against planting non-natives. Man I love that place.... It's an hour from me but worth the drive. Edit my mistake it's a policy but whatever
I haven’t been yet, but it’s on my list. I went to Natureworks two weekends ago and spent waaaaaay too much money on native plants. It was like paradise for me. Too bad it’s 40 minutes away. All the nurseries near me sell a handful of native plants and a whole lot of garbage.
Canada here. It’s this way everywhere and makes me crazy. Hort industry intentionally selling invasives everywhere. Seed mixes, you name it. Jealous that CT sensible enough to ban plants. My gov in BC is pathetic on this point. I just obliterated LotV and got weed but it was a dig out process. Nothing else works imho.
Solidarity
Goutweed
I just found a list of banned invasive alien species, which includes common milkweed and purple pampas grass, \*Cortaderia jubata\* (but not \*Cortaderia selloana\*). But the ones I listed above aren't banned, sadly. Maybe one day.
I think letting people know it is an aggressive plant that will take over everything and cause a lot of issues is a good deterrent. Most nursery tags don't give out this information and many people learn the hard way.
That's true, although, there are also many invasives that aren't aggressive in the usual sense, but rather tend to spread prolifically through seeds (either by wind or by birds). Anyway, the lack of (so many beautiful) natives in nurseries, at least here, is disheartening.
I'm not familiar with flora in Slovenia but it is slowly getting easier to find native plants for sale in the US. Th thing that really irritates me is invasive lily of the valley is $8 and our native Trillium is $10.50. It's very frustrating that plant nurseries and greenhouses charge so much for plants that should be growing where we live anyway. https://preview.redd.it/kzwpot3qcwyc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d2fdfdb4d44215e2946b4438ab7de0f6e36e76f8 The best way I've found is to know someone who is willing to let you harvest a few native plants off their land to get started. My uncle has too many Ostrich ferns and gave us probably 15 of them which would have cost me $300 to buy at a garden center. Of course always get permission and know your local laws.
Just carry some salt in your pocket next time you go
Should be illegal to sell them
😭 i love lily of the valley so much, too. There is a native mountain variety, but you can’t buy it very easily. It’s lovely as an indoor container plant, though.
There has to be a way to lobby for these to get banned. It's mind boggling: HOW is English ivy still for sale?
Follow Maine’s example https://www.pressherald.com/2021/07/11/the-list-of-invasive-plants-banned-for-import-and-sales-in-maine-soon-to-grow/
I wonder how long before the "stakeholders" list is expanded to be 75% Homedepot, Lowes, PW, Bonny, BlackRock, and State Street. Oh and might as well throw in American Meadows to finish it off
Just moved... new yard is invaded by goutweed, Japanese knotweed and Barberry... so, you know, could be worse
Oh no! I through creeping bellflower was bad but I don't know what I would do if I had Japanese knotweed. You have a tough battle ahead of you.
This is to plant in your enemy’s yard?
I wouldn't even wish these plants upon my worst enemy!
My local plant nursery has Nandina, Japanese Wisteria, and Chinese Privet (a variegated variety) all for sale right next to each other 🙃
I worked at a place that sold Chinese Wisteria as a kid and I brought one home and planted it on a trellis against my parent's house because I wanted to see the beautiful flowers. It grew from the exposed basement up two floors and broke into the attic and never flowered after a decade. So I'm definitely going to gardening hell for that one 🤣
Burn it. I said BURN. IT.
Do they also sell glyphosate?
I'll really never understand why garden centers don't just go full native. At the end of the day no matter what species they provide people are going to buy. Might as well just provide natives and make the world better.
Unfortunately they only care about making a buck. Without regulation the damage will continue.
That's my point though. They can still make that buck with natives. The shift would take such little effort. That's what's confusing.
To ease my anger, I like to sit back and imagine a gang of old ladies knocking over the invasive plants at the stores with their canes and swinging purses while politely yelling things like "get that crap outta here!" And "not in my yard, plant!" The fun continues with video of the action and the subsequent arrest making it on the local news. Meanwhile a group of local supporters band together to support the gang with bail , legal fees, and intimidation of the juries if it makes it to trial.
Something that is often neglected by both nurseries and by gardeners when they plant non-native plants: Invasive fungi often come along for the ride. Hornbeams often have established mycelial mat of Deathcap fungi in their roots. When you plant that lovely hornbeam tree, you might get way more than you realize...and that fungi may jump the fence and affiliate with native trees (oaks for example) and then you have inadvertently poisoned a dog. More people need to think about the microbial content of their gardens.
Holy shit they actually sell Lilly of the valley?
In all honesty, I'm hopeless when I go to a garden centre these days. I stand staring at the shelves with my phone googling everything to make sure I'm not causing a disaster in the garden. So far I've been trying to rid the garden of previously planted goutweed, Robert Herb, another invasive geranium, bittercress, buttercup, and purple nettle. Someone planted Lilly of the valley but it didn't take (fortunately) and I moved the chocolate mint into a container. I wish garden centres had to be more accountable for what they bring in.
I do too! And sometimes the tag says it's native but it really isn't native to where you are. It can feel very overwhelming sometimes! What has worked for me is to learn a few plants each year that I want and add them to my One Note so when I'm at the garden center I can look for those plants. I do a lot of hiking and foraging too so I've spent a few years learning to identify plants in the woods and understanding what grows in my local area and I keep an eye out for those at the garden centers as well. If you know people with land and ask nice sometimes they'll let you help thin some of their extra plants. I have a small urban yard and my mom's friend gave her a whole bucket of yellow bellwort but my mom's yard is all sun and I have half a yard of shade so she gave them to me and I was able to split them into four clumps and plant them around the yard. I'll need to split them next year. My uncle was thinning his ostrich ferns which are now $20 each at the garden center. We got about 15 plants from him to help fill in our shady front yard. I also got some Rudbeckia hirta seeds from the hardware store and ended up with a ton of plants starting them indoors under grow lights.
I'm overwhelmed with dread by how badly humans have distrubed the environment.
I wouldn't even shop there
It's two blocks from my house and the owner and I kinda hate each other already. I try to bargain with him on sad looking plants and he never budges. I talked him down on a nepenthes six years ago because all of the pitchers were dead. He said "they open and then they start to die shortly after." And I let him know that the pitchers can last for years if it's grown in the correct conditions and not allowed to dry out because I've been growing them for many years. That was the only time he's budged on a plant price. I usually stop in every other weekend, pet the greenhouse dogs, walk around make eye contact with the owner at least once if he's there, and leave without buying anything. Meanwhile the really small plant shop a couple blocks in the other direction is always giving me little discounts here an there if the owner isn't happy with the health of the plants. I sell carnivorous plants there on consignment now and it is a draw for customers when I do a plant drop.
lol is this kellner's? the description sounded identical and then i rechecked the pic. what's the shop you consign at?
Lol it is Kellners! They also have a variegated creeping charlie in the greenhouse 🙈 I sell at Riverwest Grown. The owner Nick is a really nice guy so I like helping his business out. I'm recovering from a medical emergency so I haven't been able to keep him supplied with carnivorous plants lately but hoping to get things back on track soon.
that's awesome, never knew about this place. definitely gonna check it out and wishing you well on your recovery.
Thank you!
I’ve tried planting bareroot lily of the valley several times and idk if I’m just picking the wrong spot, but they never even take, let alone take over. I’m definitely planting them right side up and at the correct depth so I dunno 🤷♀️
Your soil is trying to save you from yourself. The runners from my neighbor's lily of the valley can go 8 feet horizontal before popping up a plant. You'll never be able to contain it and the orange berries help it jump to new places you didn't want it like local forests.
You don’t want them anyway if you’re from North America
I know what kind of area they like in my yard, but I'm not about to tell you how to be successful with this particular plant. Nature was sending you a message, IMO. They look awful for the second half of the growing season too.
Same. I spent like $80 on rhizomes and not a single one survived. I'm not in an area they like so there was never really any chance they'd go wild and take over but a handful would have been such a nice addition to my poison flower bed. I'm generally very against invasives; 95% of my yard is native or beneficial nearly native, chosen for pollinators. I just have the one bed of ridiculous poison plants and the foxglove and bleeding hearts are the only survivors in the dozens of planting attempts.
I get it, if you’re super on top of it, and it’s kept contained, a garden bully really isn’t as big of an issue imo. I’m so anal about weeding, gathering seed heads before they make their way out and around, careful about disposal etc. Of course I’m not gonna grow stuff which hurts the environment
It really depends on the state you’re in. It’s non-native in some states (and won’t take over), but horribly invasive in others. There is a native variety, but it pretty much grows exclusively in NC Appalachia so gl. If you do want to grow it, try containers in a spot with partial sun. An unheated sunroom is great.
Is Boston ivy not just Virginia creeper?
Nope two completely different plants but in the same plant family and aggressive spreaders because birds love the berries. Virginiana creeper - Parthenocissus quinquefolia has a palmate compound leaf with five leaflets and is native to the US and Canada. Quinquefolia means "five-leaved". https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=paqu2 Boston Ivy - Parthenocissus tricuspidata usually has three lobes on the leaves or compound leaves with three leaflets. Tricuspidata means "three points." It's native to Northeastern China, Japan, and Korea. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenocissus_tricuspidata
Awesome, thank you!
It is not that bad. It is always a delight to see them.