The Garden of Good and Evil Plants

A peak through old garden photos and journals made me realize that The Thugs were back. I'm talking about those extra-vigorous plants that, given an inch, will take a mile. Bishop's weed (Aegopodium, aka goutweed), for example, which I first admired outside a little art gallery in Door County some 20 years ago, has spread in several beds. I liked the way its variegated leaves lit up the ground in a shady spot around the gallery's doorway. So I planted some in front of the yews. And then discovered that by mid-summer, the leaves had become tattered and dried out. I had to cut them all down.


Bishop's weed (left) and Artemisia 'Limelight' (right).

Then there's Artemisia 'Limelight', a perennial that has the most delightful colors—chartreuse and green—in the spring. I planted it in a border of lime-green and merlot-colored foliage and discovered that it's quick to suffocate nearby plants.

Lysimachia nummularia 'Aurea', the lime-colored groundcover, has skipped out of the bed where I planted it under 'Tiger Eyes' sumac and is running willy nilly through the lawn.

There's pipevine (Artistolochia), which I pictured cloaking an arbor and attracting pipevine swallowtails to lay their eggs on it. It has crept away from the arbor and has managed to clamber 18 feet up a purple weeping beech.

And golden hops vine planted on a purple arbor—also sending up shoots several feet away as the trumpet vine (Campsis radicans) is doing elsewhere.

All high maintenance plants to say the least. Pulling, cutting, cursing and, yes, chemicals, have become part of this gardener's artillery. The moral of this story is to investigate before buying (or accepting freebie plants from friends).

What thugs are growing in your garden and how have you controlled them?

—Nina Koziol