When I first moved in, I had a lot of goldenrod on my property. I kept it for many years (used it a lot in my fall bouquets when I was selling at market) but over the years I took a lot out because it always seemed to be in the wrong spot - i.e. somewhere where i wanted to plant something else lol. I do feel a bit guilty about it but there is sooo much all around here that I'm not overly upset at what I've pulled.

Now that I think about it, I've kinda done the same with Solomon's Seal, but on a smaller scale. Most of that is in the wooded areas and I work around that more in my shade gardens.

Geez, another just popped into my head. This one I HATE removing but sometimes I have to if I want to expand my gardens. Hair cap moss. My yard had huge swaths of it when I moved in. I love it. When it gets adequate water it's like having a shag carpet in your yard lol. So soft and nice to walk on, and yet so tough and low maintenance. We've lost lots of it through me adding gardens (a little piece of my heart dies every time I dig some up lol) and I think we've lost a lot through the loss of many trees over the years. Between tree loss and climate change, it hasn't been always able to survive the double whammy of hot sun and drought.

I think that's about it. There's a lot of other stuff I've removed but I believe they are all invasives (except for poison ivy and Virginia Creeper lol)

:)

Dee

Many natives are agressive spreaders. The handsome Pycnanthemums are all mints--and pretty much spread like mint; though not quite as agressive, they still are spreaders. My neighbor, despite my request that she not do so, planted milkweed in her bed that is right across the fence from mine. We are still trying to get it out of our gardens. I could go on and on, but you get the idea.

I am most certainly not against natives. I am actually a strong proponent of including many natives to help our pollinators and I have many in my garden, but you do need do understand that many natives are designed by nature to be agressive and should be planted only in meadow type plantings where they are held in check by other natives with strong root systems and perhaps aggressive tendencies themselves.

One of my 'weeds' on the allotment is Potentilla erecta, Tormentil. A delight in nature, a nightmare in the vegetable patch. For a delicate little thing it has deep woody roots like a tree sapling and runners like a strawberry. Perfectly adapted for survival in the poor soils it evolved for. A rampant menace in decent earth.

Ive wanted to get rid of a few ultra agressive native vines. I love them, but they will kill everything if left to themselves. Honeyvine, Cynanchum laeve Wooly Pipevine, Arostolochia/Isotrema tomentosa and Manroot, Ipomoea pandurata. I have them controlled enough that they arent smothering anything else. My Chinese Yam, Dioscorea bulbifera finally gave up the ghost after 2 decades. The Trumpet Vine, Campsis radicans has been beaten back to only a couple shoots showing up per year. When I grew Stylophorum in a sunnier place they self seeded a lot more than they do in deeper shade. On the upside they are easy to manage and remove, unlike other natives like Silphium and the large Verbesina that need a shovel to remove. This year the poppies grew and flowered at about a foot tall, while some years they get up to 3 feet. My main concern about too many poppies or other shade natives is that they prevent the smaller native jewels like Rue Anemone, Hepatica, Phlox divaricata, Araisaema triphyllum and dracontium, rare Viola species

Aunt Lucy, False Mermaid, Cardamines, Trillium, etc from germinating.

Center is Wood Poppy. I love diversity. The deer prefer my Tall Bellflower, Campanulastrum americanum and Jerusalem Artichokes, Helianthus tuberosus over the Hosta. They also nibble off the tender, thornless tips of my Ribes and Smilax. I think Smilax is beautiful.

The tables have been turned for this Stylophorum. It's being thugged out by Wood Nettle, Laportea canadensis, Wingstem, Verbesina alternifolia, Early Figwort, Scrophularia marilandica and Pokeweed, Phytolacca americana. It's time to thin out the Wood Nettle. I find it's sting to feel more like an itchy mosquito bite. Laportea is edible and also a butterfly host plant.

I'm sure your Wood Poppy is Stylophorum, but sometimes bad people sell the very similar looking Lesser Celendine as Stylophorum. Stylophorum handles drought really well, unlike Jewelweed. Wild Ginger is low growing, but nothing can germinate in it's dense carpet. The bare ground was to make room for my Virginia Snakeroot which never returned.

A north facing view of the previous raised bed photo with Black Cohosh getting ready to bloom. The bare ground under the blue spruce is my new project. Ive already planted it with Wild Ginger, Asarum canadense, Coralberry, Symphoricarpis orbiculata, Some Carex. The Coralberry is extremely agressive and it makes necklaces of baby Coralberries. I will eventually remove them be tweaking this bed. I want to have more ephemerals and less taller shade natives in the future. I envision a bunch of Camassia scilloides and Gillenia trifoliata and stipulata and ferns underneath that blue spruce.

The plant confused with Stylophorum would be Greater Celandine, Chelidonium majus rather than Lesser Celandine, Ficaria verna.

Thanks floral, I always get those confused. The Ficaria can be confused with Marsh Marygold, Caltha palustris which is also native over there.

This is one of my pet peeves, I'm sorry to say. That unfortunately many native proponents aggressively promote natives in a way that is very narrow and short sighted. Every garden is individual. Not just the gardener, but the location and the conditions and the climate.

In the beginning of the native movement, if I remember right, it was an across the board recommendation to plant anything that was native. It didn't seem to matter if it was native to California and you lived in New England. Thankfully, many people realized that mistake and that was amended. I have made the journey from being enthusiastic about anything native, to being much more discerning. In the beginning, I must have been like everyone else who only needed the name native to try to grow it. But the theories met reality and my views changed. I have tried a number of natives that didn't really enjoy my property. I ended up with a few that were thugs that I had to remove. I still have a lot of natives and I'm sure would buy more. But I think those who promote natives without understanding that each garden is individual and not all natives are good choices for everyone, are doing the native movement a disservice.

Virginia Creeper was the biggest thug in my garden and we had to rip all of it out. I'm still on the lookout for any of it to return. I'm sure it must work in another setting for someone, but, definitely not for me, even though I believe it is native to my area. Wood Poppy....actually when we first moved here we had the Chinese variety everywhere. I have tried to rip out all the Chinese and replace with native but, it has failed to take. Rabbits have eaten every one I planted before it could even reseed. Woodland phloxes and Tiarellas, died out after multiple attempts to get them to grow here, yet Phlox subulata did very well. Virginia Bluebells - I planted three, 25 years ago and today I have one. lol I love Solomon Seal, but two areas where it was growing died out near the bases of mature trees, yet the variegated form of Solomon's Seal has grown into 3x larger patch at the base of my Lilacs in just the past 5 years. I did buy the dwarf Solomon's Seal and that is happy under the trees and is spreading. Many many more that have passed through my garden. And there are more that are on my list to eventually get.

I wouldn't hesitate or feel one ounce of guilt to remove a plant, native or not that made my gardening efforts so difficult that I couldn't keep up with the garden. We can't all grow anything and everything. I think we have to be satisfied and happy with our successes and focus on that.

I have been planting natives for 20 years or more. Started with trees, especially keystone species like oaks. I now have 14 oaks on our half acre plus two Betula nigra (River Birch), a sassafras, a fringe tree, Acer saccharum, etc., etc. They are all host plants and support hundreds of caterpillars. I try to plant things that are host plants and don't worry so much about pollinator since those awill come. I agree about the Virginia Creeper. Ugh we have it coming up like crazy-ugh, ugh, ugh. Have some native volunteers that spread, but I like some of them, so I pull a lot but keep a few. Keeps me busy. ;-) Just planted quite a few native perennial plugs in the front yard in May. Fingers crossed they will thrive. Also, I still have some non-natives that I love which I will take out...when they die. Doug Tallamy is my go-to and he will settle for a 70% natives to 30% non-natives. I think I am about there. I am seeing so many more birds now-delightful.

I think that most of us who plant natives are happy to help anyone who asks for it, but I honestly don't think most or many of us are aggressive, short-sighted, or narrow-minded. I am happy to encourage anyone, but would never push my ideas on anyone. Yes, every garden is and gardener is individual and yes, so are the location, conditions, and climate. Luckily, there are native plants (and non-native) for each of those. Just choose your 'expert' carefully.

Most PNW natives are not well-suited to an urban or suburban garden of 'normal' size. They tend to be a bit wild and wooly or resent cultivation so you rarely see them. The exceptions are ceanothus, sword ferns, western rhododedron, Pacific wax myrtles and cammassia.

Natives from other areas of the country often struggle in our climate and growing conditions as well, so not very common either, although a few are very popular and common and do well.

So nothing native removed and a few added. But natives comprise only a very small portion of my preferred plant pallette anyway.

Cyn, I started gardening over 45 years ago I actually started out gardening as an organic gardener. Native plants were not even a topic then. Organics was barely a topic and was very uncommon at that time. I was very enthusiastic about organics and I still am. When natives came along, I was equally enthusiastic. They’re really under the same umbrella.

Unfortunately, my experiences locally with individuals and groups that promoted natives was a negative one. And that continued online. We’ve certainly seen enough of it here on GW over the years. When I said native proponents have promoted natives in a narrow way, I meant that those who have been aggressive have insisted on natives only and criticize people who grow non natives. And aggressive is what I have experienced. Sorry to say.

I am sorry you experienced that. I have been gardening for many decades, but only began focusing on natives about 20 years ago. I hope your locals have mellowed by now.

I have a lot of native woodies and perennials, but not all natives. I'm not critical of anyone who doesn't have 100% natives, but in all honesty I am at least somewhat critical of those who refuse to plant any (not counting trees). I don't mean they're not familiar with them, I mean they just refuse to acknowledge the value or look beyond a few aggressives -- they lump all natives into the "too aggressive" category or think all natives are rangey sprawly messes. Native enthusiasts who don't keep up with things and their gardens are a rangey sprawly mess don't help the cause...

I'm talking mostly about perennials and shrubs here -- most people here will plant native trees (oaks, maples, etc), not because they're native but because they're great trees and readily available.

Anyway, I don't feel so guilty after reading some of the replies. Maybe I can stick it out in the pasture and let it fend for itself. That actually might not be a bad idea, the shady part of teh pasture is back by the woods where a lot of garlic mustard grows -- those two can duke it out, maybe the wood poppy will emerge victorious. At least it's native :0)

Sounds like vines are what people are having the most problems with. I've got a few types of vines growing all over the vegetable garden fencing, IDK what they are but my project for DH this year is a clean-up of all that scrubby stuff in preparation for dismantling the fencing. He's got some shrubs and scrub trees to dig out, too.

Porkchop, I agree. I think starting with the trees as the backbone/structure in a garden is a good idea. Now, I am in the process (a loooong process) of planting 497 native to my town plugs in our front yard. Have four native shrubs to go in as well and most should be planted by the end of next week. The shrubs will go in this weekend. Our temps are unexpectedly in the 90s with high humidity now, so I last about 3 hours max, but there is weeding to do out there and in the back that I can do sitting on the ground-sometimes under the sprinkler. ;-) Feels more like July/August that May and June. :-(