Plants not to plant

Some plants do well, and then they take over the garden, end up in the neighbor's yard, and won't even die in the compost pile. Many of these are on the invasive list for Oregon and should not be planted. There are many other low maintenance plants that will thrive and not spill over into our native ecosystem.

Plants I beg you not to plant, and please don’t ask me to plant them for you…I hate telling clients no.

• Mt. Bretia, Crocosmia, Lucifer's Red I know you love the blooms, so plant them in a pots and cut the flowers off an bring them in before they go to seed, but please don't plant them in your yard. The deer tend to eat most of blossoms anyhow. We call Mt. Bretia our most expensive plant as we've had clients spend more money on removing this plant than any other. It spreads by running underground and by seed. It also cannot be burned and should not go into any compost pile as it will come back.

• English Ivy Sure, you know not to plant it, but don't even plant it in a pot. I can't tell you how many times as I've climbed through a rat-infested ivy jungle I find a single cracked rotted container that was once home to a potted arrangement with a 4" start of ivy. At the end of summer, the container got dumped in the woods where it plotted revenge and 10 years later is an army ready to consume the neighborhood. Yes, even the cute variegated varietal can revert and become regular tenacious ivy.

• Lamium, Spotted Dead Nettle, Yellow Archangel, Lamiastrum galeobdolon

• Vinca, Periwinkle

• Euphorbia, Mole Plant (not all varieties are bad)

• Linaria, Toad Flax

• Mint, Chocolate Mint

• Lemonbalm

• Stipa gigantea, Giant Feather Grass

• Pampas Grass

• Phalaris arundinacea, Variegated Ribbon Grass—it's a variegated form of the super invasive Reed Canary Grass, need I say more?

• Bamboo

• Blood Grass—it reverts and turns green here anyway

• Arum Root

• Calla Lilly

• Phygelius, Cape Fuchsia

• Comfrey - It will swallow plants whole and return from the tiniest piece of easily broken root.

• Aegopodium podagraria, Variegated Bishop's Weed, Variegated Gout Weed

• Butterfly Bush

• Galium odoratum, Sweet Woodruff