Invasives: Invasive Aliens for Sale

MXB says in the Ivy thread currently rumbling & grumbling along:
I pray for the day when the Govt of BC bans the sale of English (or Irish) Ivy and all other plants that are considered invasive in this area. Why are garden centers allowed to sell this stuff? Drives me nuts

-Made me think, & a little reading gave me the following list of plants I have seen for sale in garden centres or plant sales that are invasive aliens or classified as noxious weeds in BC, in the last 2 years. Their status as such is from information on the website of the Ministry of Agriculture & Lands:

Baby's-Breath Gypsophila paniculata
Chicory Cichorium intybus
Common Bugloss Anchusa officinalis
St. John's-Wort Hypericum perforatum
English (or Dutch) Ivy Hedera helix
False lamium Lamiastrum galeobdolon
Laurel Prunus laurocerasus
Holly Ilex aquifolium
Daphne Daphne laureola

Of course, not all of these either grow-in, or are problem plants in all regions of BC:

Anyone got any more for the list in SW BC?

Greater Vancouver Invasive Plant Council has a hit list & the best local information I can find: www.gvipc.ca

I have been guilty of planting some of these through ignorance, in the past along with a lot of other people. Are things geting better. How about the young people coming out of colleges with diplomas in Hort, & landscape designers? Are they aware, of these issues?

gb.

 

Shoot, and here I thought you might be selling tribbles.....

I'm not sure for BC, but one man's invasive weed is another's hedge here in Ecuador.... Lantana camara (Spanish Flag) and Rubus glaucus (Mora de Castilla) are excellent examples of this principle in action.

 

...it's difficult isn't it? How can a plant go into a phone booth do a quick change & come out as SUPERPLANT?

I've seen your Rubus glaucus in Maui & it ain't well behaved there in places. Mind you, Hawaii has the worst case of human sponsored invasion in general that I've seen. Cats to Acacias!

My Holly tree is quite well behaved also. If only the darn birds would not eat the berries & deposit them around the local woods, we'd be OK. Toilet train those robins, please.

gb.

 

TRIBBLES? No way. We have a lot of Winter Olympics Mascots to sell in BC. Wanna buy an unidentifiable pseudomythical creature at great cost?

gb.

 

ummmm. no thanks....

Rubus glaucus is native to the Ecuadoran Andes, and classed as a noxious invasive on the Galapagos, which are also part of Ecuador. How's that for a presto change-o? It's ill-behaved everywhere, just like every other blackberry bramble I've ever met.

 

Try selling them on EBay.

People there will buy literally anything just because its being offered on EBay.

 

Growing zone makes a difference for sure. I've been babying my English Ivy now close on 5 years and I still can't be certain it has taken. I am the proud grower of 3 different types of Laminum and they grow to about 4' only. I buy Anchusas, they are labelled as perennial but they never come back so I think of them as annuals much like zonal Geraniums.

 

"Try selling them on EBay" . . .

Just to show what you can get on EBay . . .

 

...Hmm. I wonder if they would be invasive in SW BC? Maybe I should put a bid in for a breeding pair & try releasing them. Might take care of the urban sprawl round here - they do eat subdivisions, don't they?

My son who is into succulents & pachycauls used to get mad regularly when he saw rare or listed plants collected from the wild for sale on ebay. Can't blame him. Maybe we could "out" the sellers on a forum? Born troublemaker, me.


BTW...what the heck has this to do with invasive plants? Our moderator is going to tick us off. Hush now.

gb.

 

Oh my - are you talking about importing the world's most invasive blackberry canes? Don't do it!

And if you're talking about acquiring the type of Elephant Ears that are part of Loxodonta africana, especially on eBay, please consider that although they will eat subdivisions, they are not cold-hardy, they have a "smell", and they produce a large volume of excess fertilizer....

 

Put Houttynia cordata 'Chameleon' on your list of invasive plants sold in nurseries. An aggressive groundcover with multi-colored red, green and gold leaves with white flowers in May-June. The plant smells terrible, like a kind of cleaning fluid, when cut. I am trying to take it out of a flowerbed some idiot had added it to in the past, and I will be digging up its numerous very deep, rapidly-growing whitish tough cordlike roots for ever. As soon as I have finished another leaf pops up somewhere in the area worked on.

 

OK. Thanks. True!

I'd like to add Iris pseudocorus (Ron B had a dig at me about that one in my pond - I have an Iris to replace it). It's taking over a perfectly nice pond & turning it into a mass of nothing handsome but rampant Iriseses.

 

And there is the wandering Jew. One person has it as a much loved and cared for hanging basket on the other side ofthe world. Mine has taken over about quater of an acre. Blackberries love it here thanks to the English and the nostalgia kick we also got foxes and rabbits and rampant holly and ivy etc.etc.etc.
Liz

 

...Hmm? Not a very politically correct name, that. Are you referring to the Long Lived Wandering Middle Eastern Male Personage of Non-Arabic Ancestry, Famed in Poetry & Literature? I think I'll call it Tradescantia zebrina & avoid any controversy :)

T. zebrina is not hardy in SW BC. The Hoottynia cordata is tender too, more or less, except in warm spots around the house. I'm right about that aren't I, fellow Cascadians? Our equivalent semms to be that loathsome Labiate "Lamiastrum", the Wandering Pest.

gb

 

That's interesting, the "hoottynia Houttynia cordata" indeed disappears in winter, to reappear stubbornly in summer in a warm sunny spot here in the greater Victoria area. Never mind the politically incorrect names, that one in particular makes a lovely houseplant; that's what it's called in Victorian novels too... like Gypsy thieves, tightwad or no-nonsense Scotsmen, Merry Wives of Windsor, Quiet Canadians, Ugly Americans... we are all afflicted by our various warped images in fiction or poetry or myth someone invented in the past... the Roman slaves in Britian were Celts or some earlier folk, they seemed to get over it finally and forget the slavery, only to see the Empire decline...

 

Nurseries might stop selling the horrible stuff (lamium, hedera helix) if there was no demand for it but there is, and if there's a dollar to be made that's not illegal, they will continue to sell it. Personally, if anyone asks me for it, I do my level best to convince them how nasty it is and never to grow it straight in the garden, only in pots with no way out. But sometimes I just can't stop them no matter what (" But I WANT something that covers 10 feet square in a season!") Some people just want their magic quick fix and won't listen. We do not sell plain green ivy, but I've noticed new breeds of lamiums being sold. People still want the bloody stuff, despite all the information available on it's horrific qualities. I happen to have an insight on lamium hell- dealing with it in a garden someone poured big rocks in to control weeds HA!

 

Are the new varieties of Lamiastrum going to be invasive? I know that the variegated English Ivy is slower & less agressive round here than it's plain sibling. I gather you sell plants - can I just say thank you for thinking about this issue. I am not sure that all of your peers do so. Edumacation needed!

gb

 

Yes, education is the key. And unfortunately, the new varieties seem to be every bit as invasive. Labeled by nurseries as 'vigorous'. Nicely worded, but misleading.
I'm at the end of the Langley warmer microclimate (16th-0 Ave.) and I see it (lamium, lamiastrum) taking over waste areas. Ivy not so much, but towards Mission/Maple ridge I see it in areas far from habitation and it irks me. Bird dropping spread no doubt, like the Ilex. I started teaching native plant ID and ethnobotany before I got into the nurseries, so I suppose I have a slightly different approach to what should and should not be in the garden than my peers who have only ever been concerned with the next hot plant and the bottom line. I REALLY wish a little of this was taught in school (elementary) along with native studies. Anyone from the board of education read these forums?

 

<Bird dropping spread no doubt, like the Ilex.>
I have never looked closely enough at it to see the seeds. I thought it was people disposing of garden waste (weeding debris - old hanging baskets) that spread it vegetatively.

You must be close to that lovely nursery "Petals & Butterflies". We're in the wetter zone down by the river in N. Langley.

gb.

 

Bird droppings is the big seed spreader here as well as some of the native wildlife that get a taste for the fruit and berries. Parrots are great gourmets of holly, bannana passion fruit ex orchard apple trees cherry plums and ivy seeds are a favourite of imported blackbirds.
There was some weed dumping but it is fairly undercontrol these days. Escapees from gardens next to state forest has also been a problem.

Liz

 

<"You must be close to that lovely nursery "Petals & Butterflies"> I drive past that nursery on my way to work. It is lovely! I live in Abby, but I work for the illustrious (and always entertaining) VanderZalm clan at Art Knapps Mud Bay. Hour drive each way, but at least it's along the microclimate corridor. Marvelous natives all along the 0 Ave route. I just wish I could get my butt in gear early enough to go wine tasting!

L

 

I have been thinking of this, and wrote somthing about it.

before I copy/ paste it around here In Illinios(near Chicago) buckthron is very invasive,
Honey suckle also.

this is the kind of thing Im interested in hybridizing plants, and
making them less invasive fighting themselves
MAYBE Im ignorant about that

I know Brad ford pear( A marble size pear)is supposed to be sterile,
but polinate s with other pears, and makes them invasive.

WAs just looking around for a plant related to galic mustard
(In same genus)
not family as the list is long, and Im not sure if they'd cross.


the ones I was looking at that are galic mustard are.
Alliaria petiolata , and Alliaria officinalis
To make a hybrid that posibaly could hybrize others close By.
(I was also thinking common buckthorn Rhamnus cathartica with native
one in California (ah Rhamnus purshianus


this is the kind of thing Im interested in hybridizing plants, and
making them less invasive fighting themselves
MAYBE Im ignorant about that

I know they are hermapherdits, and self fertile,
but what could it harm since they crowd out everything.
(maybe more of a chance of bee's going from one to another
or wind pollenation, and making the hybrids hybrize with (Alliaria
petiolata ) others near By.
making the plant less invasive
(like black berries, and raspberries, creating ligonberries)
Im just not sure how a plot of ligonberries(In CAnada)IN a row of
blackberries could slow future genreations of invasive blackberrires.


(I was thinking common buckthorn Rhamnus cathartica crossed with
native one in California Rhamnus purshianus
might also cross with others near by and make common buckthron less
invasive from hybrization in those area's.

Mostly wondering what a hybrid of the two buckthrons would do to the
next generation of the invasive buckthorn,

Im not sure if this would work but nature holds the answer some where
I believe
not hard to grow one California buckthorn either since you could
always Graft onto the common common buckthorn rootstock.

for smaller area's
Im sure I could always just spread ground up corn(corn gluten), and
stop all seeds from spouting invasive , and non invasive , and
replant other native plants in the area.


maybe honey suckle shurb hybridized with a honey suckle vine would not be invasive. .

 

We've got an absolute wild fire vine in Morning Glory around here. Every summer it takes over the whole block. I'm too lazy (also busy) to weed, so I barely bother with fighting it back any more. I just wish evil things on the person who planted it in the ground in the first place.

 

I appreciate your sentiment, but that won't get rid of it. Which species is it, there's variety of plants species covered by this common name? Some of the are well-behaved garden plants here, but goodness knows what they get up to Aus. Our weed is Convolvulus arvensis the Field bindweed, I believe. Yours is probably different. Do a search on these forums, I think there have been previous threads about this stuff in Aus.

You could invite me down & I could do some weeding for you, how about it?

gb

 

You're right, there's a load of us Australians even on here who have the same problem with this bugger of a thing. Its some form of Ipomoea (my guess is Weedum Painintheassus Prettylilacea). My next door neighbour (and we're talking a lovely 60 year old man) has gone to the extent of half-jumping the fence to spray the thing with weed killer, and still it thrives.

I would invite you, but I live by the motto "First Do No Harm". Unfortunately, trying to weed this thing is a like a battle to the death that I can't in good conscious recommend anyone take on.