Watch Out For That Plant! Aggressive Plants in the Garden

Gardeners and plantsmen alike have a knack for getting plants in our gardens to grow well, sometimes too well. We all have those plants that looked so great at first-blooming in their pots and looking so contained. Then we set them in our garden beds, expecting them to stay where planted, only to find them popping up all across the garden by the following summer, and thinking “I only planted one…?

Aggressive plants can be defined in different ways, depending on their location and how they spread. Invasive is used to label plants that are detrimental to the native landscape and health of an ecosystem. Aggressive can be used to describe plants that grow faster or better than others in a space. They may be desired in an area that needs filling in quickly, in a cottage garden, or where they can ramble. However, many aggressive plants need regular maintenance to keep them from outgrowing their designated space in the garden.

Rudbeckia triloba

 

Aggressive plants may be native or non-native. Many of them spread best by seed, sowing themselves across the garden in a year or two. Others may spread via rhizomes or stolons, planting themselves everywhere a stem touches soil.

“Some of our more aggressive plants are also very wonderful plants.”

Some of our more aggressive plants are also very wonderful plants, great for their beauty, toughness, and benefits to pollinators and humans alike. Aggressive plants such as garlic chives, rudbeckia triloba, New England aster, and Jerusalem artichoke are favorites of bees and butterflies for pollen and nectar. Others such as raspberries, strawberries, chives, and blackberries are very beneficial to wildlife and humans. Ornamental aggressives can include Russian sage, creeping buttercup, garden phlox, sweet autumn clematis, and northern sea oats.

Before planting any of these and others, we should fully understand the nature of the plant-how much room does it need? How does it spread? What is the best use of this plant? Many gardeners and homeowners buy on a whim-they see a pretty plant in the garden center and think they can find a spot for it-forgetting to do a quick search or ask a professional about what the plant needs are and what it  may do for them. Plant tags often give some ideas of light and water requirements, height and width, but may omit things like plant tends to climb quickly over trellises and arbors, often crashing them with weight as may be the case with sweet autumn clematis.  While this clematis is extremely fragrant and tough, it can reseed easily and it needs a very sturdy trellis to withstand its growth.

 

Sweet Autumn Clematis
Sweet Autumn Clematis

So remember plant lovers, find the best place for your plants, after learning what they may do in your garden.

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