While burning bush is prized for its vibrant fall color, its aggressive spreading habit makes it a poor choice for landscapes. (photo: Leslie J. Mehrhoff, University of Connecticut/bugwood.org)
While burning bush is prized for its vibrant fall color, its aggressive spreading habit makes it a poor choice for landscapes. (photo: Leslie J. Mehrhoff, University of Connecticut/bugwood.org)
While summer provides a bounty of fruits, veggies and flowers, it also brings invasive species.
Common invasive species that you might find in your garden or landscape often started out as decorative landscape plants. Plants like knotweed, goutweed, burning bush and Japanese barberry were once imported for their attractive and vigorous garden characteristics.
For example, knotweed (Fallopia japonica) has a lot of characteristics that likely made it attractive to plant in the past. It has showy flowers and seedheads, yellow-orange fall color and red showy stems. It easily forms hedges and grows in almost any condition. Ironically, this growth habit is exactly what makes knotweed invasive today.
Knotweed is an expert at spreading. Just a little piece of a root or stem can sprout into a new plant. Its opportunistic spirit makes it very good at establishing in eroded areas, such as river banks. It looks very obvious along river banks, forming dense hedges and stifling diverse native plant growth.
If you have knotweed in your home garden, there are a number of ways to manage it. The first is mechanical, or cutting back the plants by hand. This should begin in the spring and continue through the growing season. After multiple years, the constant cutting should weaken the plants.
If cutting knotweed, the fresh stalks and roots should be thoroughly dried and browned in the sun before composting. Lay the cuttings on a tarp or plastic and ensure that the cuttings do not touch the edges, as it can spread easily.
Cuttings can alternatively be sealed in thick, black plastic bags and left in the sun to solarize, but this requires hot, sunny weather to be effective.
Other options for management in the home garden include smothering the plants with layers of heavy black plastic and wood chips.
Bishop's weed or goutweed (Aegopodium podagraria) is another garden menace that spreads easily by pieces of rhizomes. It grows low (1-3 feet tall), in large, uniform swaths. Each leaf is made up of nine leaflets and can be a solid or variegated green.
While burning bush is prized for its vibrant fall color, its aggressive spreading habit makes it a poor choice for landscapes. (photo: Leslie J. Mehrhoff, University of Connecticut/bugwood.org)
Bishop's weed or goutweed, which can reach heights of 1-3 feet, has solid or variegated green leaves with each leaf consisting of nine leaflets. (photo: Leslie J. Mehrhoff, University of Connecticut/bugwood.org)
Knotweed, an invasive garden plant, can be controlled by cutting back plants throughout the season to weaken them or smothering with layers of black plastic or wood chips. (photo: Bonnie Kirn Donahue)
Although once a popular landscape plant, today knotweed is considered an invasive as it thrives under all soil and growing conditions, quickly creating hedges if left uncontrolled. (photo: Bonnie Kirn Donahue)
While burning bush is prized for its vibrant fall color, its aggressive spreading habit makes it a poor choice for landscapes. (photo: Leslie J. Mehrhoff, University of Connecticut/bugwood.org)
Bishop's weed or goutweed, which can reach heights of 1-3 feet, has solid or variegated green leaves with each leaf consisting of nine leaflets. (photo: Leslie J. Mehrhoff, University of Connecticut/bugwood.org)
Knotweed, an invasive garden plant, can be controlled by cutting back plants throughout the season to weaken them or smothering with layers of black plastic or wood chips. (photo: Bonnie Kirn Donahue)
Although once a popular landscape plant, today knotweed is considered an invasive as it thrives under all soil and growing conditions, quickly creating hedges if left uncontrolled. (photo: Bonnie Kirn Donahue)
Management for bishop's weed is very similar to knotweed, including consistent hand pulling and smothering. Proper disposal is also essential, so make sure every piece gets into a trash bag or onto a tarp to dry and solarize.
Another common garden invasive is burning bush (Euonymus alatus). It has fantastic fall color, with leaves turning a vibrant red, and tiny, bright red berry-like pods that grow on the underside of the stem. The stems have ridges and make almost a square shape, which makes the bush easily identifiable by touch.
Japanese barberry ( Berberis thunbergii ) is an aggressive shrub with clusters of one-inch leaves that are often located on the upper side of the stem, thorns and tiny red berries that droop on the underside of the stem. The plant comes in many cultivars with foliage that can be yellow to green to red and purple. Japanese barberry spreads by roots and seeds, quickly taking over.
Burning bush and barberry should be cut back before fruiting to help prevent spreading the seed. The plant and roots should be carefully dried on plastic or tarps before composting or tossing in the brush pile.
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