I HAVE KILLED MANY PLANTS in my gardening career, most of them unintentional and many of them regrettable. So why can’t I kill Houttuynia cordata, the so-called chameleon plant, despite years and years of trying?
I bought the plant more than a decade ago, for the showiness of its (then) variegated red, green and yellow foliage and its touted use as a groundcover in moist shade (including plunged right in a pot in water, apparently). Certain that I had acquired a treasure, I was terribly upset when it didn’t return from underground after its first winter with me. Dead, I reported in my newspaper garden column at the time. Gone.
It was another year before the chameleon turned on me again, and resurfaced. Its resurrection was cause for celebration. Not dead, not gone!
I guess you know the rest of the story if you’ve ever grown an invasive: It behaved for a moment or two, charming me thoroughly as if my latest gem, then proceeded to get thuggish (and lose its variegation, reverting to the stronger-willed green version).
Oh, no, I said, not on your life, as it overran pulmonarias and Hylomecon, goldenseal and trilliums at a gallop. Oh, no you don’t. Out came the fork and shovel, and after the seeming bulk was uprooted and sent to the trash, out came the sheets of heavy black plastic, weighted down with stones all summer long, as I tried to bake the remainder to death (called solarizing).
By springtime: not gone, and a year later (by then two years beneath black plastic), still not gone. Four years of this treatment has done nothing but encourage it to travel farther and farther sideways underground.
Even if I wanted to use the herbicide glyphosate to stop it, I could not in this situation: The Houttuynia is growing under a big magnolia with fleshy surface roots, which would have taken up the chemical, too.
I am forking out everything beneath there now, bagging and trashing it for fear of spreading snippets of the chameleon’s roots, and will soon turn the area under this infested magnolia to lawn. Mowing for a decade or so will probably kill whatever re-sprouts, right? Or not.
And so I ask you again: Why won’t this plant die? (Oh, and any botched murder attempts to confess?)
Welcome, Lindsay. Took out all the other perennials (and the chameleon plant, all that I could get of it), sowed grass seed on the area, and have mowed for two years so far. It still sprouts, I swear. Unkillable. Hideous. Beware — you instinct is correct to use extreme caution. Hope to see you again.
Just want to say that the picture posted above looks very much like the Vietnamese herb my family and I eat and put in our summer rolls and other cool noodle dishes. They are quite invasive, that’s why it is grown in it’s own little herb area with peppermints and spearmints.
Spent all afternoon Saturday trying to eradicate a variegated variety of bamboo, about 36-48″ tall, from a huge old 10 x 12′ patch of leucothoe fontansiana. The bamboo was a small 4″ pot which I planted about 20 years ago, and it sat there and did nothing for years. Suddenly about 4 years ago I noticed that part of it migrated about 15 feet away. Its roots are just too insidious and hard to pull out, but part of it was devoured by moles! The one time I was thankful for those little grey devils!
Spent hours puling and digging out what I could, lifting the arching stems of the leucothoe, and climbing under with a shovel, my Felco 7 Swivelers. What I couldn’t pull out, I cut very short and very carefully and discriminately sprayed the cut ends with a spritz of Round-up. We’ll see what happens! But I think I won the battle, and not being able to walk or stand up straight on Sunday was worth it!
We planted dead nettle, Lamium because my wife was told it was good for dry shade. Indeed, it was spread all over the yard. Four years of glyphosate is finally removing it. Then there’s the Artemesia and Peppermint.
Mine is Grandpa Ott morning glory. Planted seeds 10 years ago in one spot. It’s now reseeded itself everywhere in my yard. I can’t get rid of it! It even sprouts in the space between the porch and the house, grows up behind the siding, pops out above the gutter and blooms!
My mother LOVED figs. I DO NOT.! After she died, I inherited the house. Now I have two huge fig trees in my back yard. One is in a VERY inconvenient place, right next to a patio. But that sucker has been cut, whacked, chopped, and slashed with a ax, and it just keeps coming back. :( Any one have any suggestions?
Without a doubt it is gout weed or bishop’s weed. It turns up everywhere! Unfortunately when we moved, we brought some of my favorite perennials with us, and along came the gout weed! Now it is all over my new gardens! If anyone offers you any of these pretty ground cover plants, leave immediately before you are tempted!
Anemone canadensis … I only started with one small plant and within years it is now spread all over the various gardens from me moving other plants and it tagging along. Sun or shade — it grows ANYWHERE and everywhere without stopping. I also have a terrible time with the English ivy that was already growing here in my yard when I moved in. My major accomplishment was removing it from all the tree trunks and canopies and side of the house — but it still overruns the lawn and tangles within the shrubs.
How about invasive Garlic Mustard? It is everywhere I look and is taking over the forest floors crowding out the native plants, let alone my own plot of land.
Well! I guess this topic strikes a chord, doesn’t it? :) John, I had to laugh about the inadvertent “help” you got from burrowing furry creatures.
Fascinating to hear what the range of possibilities is — one wo(man)’s prize is another’s weed, huh?
ARGHHH! I hate that Houttuyni stuff. A “friend” helpfully planted it in my mother’s yard (now my yard). I even hate the smell. It is over-running my rockery and a full sun bed full of perennials. It competes with english ivy! My mother seems to have planted every invasive thug. Ivy, vinca, chameleon, Mugwort, Bishopweed, Bindweed, Canadian Thistle, chinese lantern. I did successfully retake a yard full of thistle, once, with persistant weeding that starved the underground root system. I have heard of injecting roundup or industrial strength vinegar, with a hypodermic needle, for selectively killing things in a mixed bed.
I’ve been fighting this weed for years. I hate it. (What was I thinking 20 years ago with three little stems. It was cute then and I actually moved some around my property. I’m an idiot.) I dug up a whole garden bed and sifted through the dirt looking for every root, but I must have missed a few. It came back but at least the dirt is softer, after the sifting, so I can easily pull it out. In another area I started to hand paint each stem with herbicide, but the job was so massive I gave up. If anyone has an idea I would be thrilled! I accidentally planted some bishop weed in an area- that’s my bigger battle, ugh.
I have the same problem with this same plant. Year after year I try to kill it and year after year it comes back….with a vengence!! Can’t bring myself to use Roundup though.
After years of digging up roots and using herbicides, we rented a backhoe to dig up the roots of a stand of bamboo that began infiltrating everything about four years ago. With it wen the garlic mustard and a lot English ivy. I doubt we got it all, but at least if bamboo pops up now, it likely won’t be attached to a Verizon cable-sized root.
Hi, Debbie. I think I am about at that point. Issue: it’s under a magnolia, and magnolias are so fleshy-rooted with so many roots right near the surface. Horrible mess. (BY the way, if you miss your garlic mustard I know someone who has a lot…tee hee hee).
I hear, you, Frana. Last year I saw it for sale in HUGE pots in a fancy garden center, on display right up front! I almost started to scream
Hi, Choral Eddie. It it forcing out lots of native wildflowers from our woodlands, you are so correct. I must pull thousands of plants each year of garlic mustard.
I can relate to Alisa’s pain with wood anemone, though it hasn’t spread quite that far…yet. It has the most matted, tenacious roots I’ve ever encountered. Grandpa Ott morning glory has colonized a rock path, but at least I never have to worry about sowing it again, and I manage to keep it within bounds by pulling (knock wood). Ostrich fern is beginning to pop up in unusual places, so that may be my next regret, although I can’t quite regret it yet. Ajuga is spreading everywhere in my garden AND lawn, and that’s getting old. Aster Jin Dai and comfrey have also proven quite self-aggrandizing, but I still like them. The absolute hardest to eliminate for me is obedient plant (phystostegia). It will never be completely eradicated short of some sort of nuclear option. I content myself with hacking it back each year to try to keep it from taking over the world.
I have been fighting with the chameleon plant for the last 5years or so. And for the record, Round up doesn’t work on it anyway!! It singes it and it keeps on growing. You can’t pull it, cant dig it, I could just pitch a royal fit at my local garden center , who sells it to unsuspecting people as a well- behaved pond plant!!
Please someone post the cure for this invasive!!
I have been fighting houttynia now for more than ten years! Last fall I hired someone to come and clear it out of an area under a lovely Japanese maple; he cleared it out, mulched heavily, mulched again this spring, and ….. It’s Back! Apparently it will regrow from every little root node, and (as someone noted) glyphosate is not effective against it. It singes it, but it continues to grow. I am on a campaign to eradicate it, but I am not sure I will succeed. The fancy garden centre where I bought it still offers it in pots in their perennial section, for $5.99 per little pot and I have marched up to the manager more than once, pot in hand, and told him about its super-thug tendencies, but it’s still there.
I am dying for a solution!
speedwell — everywhere, lawn, vegetable garden, flower beds. Help! Would welcome any advice on how to get rid of it.
I feel so much better knowing that even Margaret Roach made the same mistake I made… in two Brooklyn gardens, where it has leapt over (under, rather) stone walkways and seems to have crowded out even hostas and ginger. I don’t tend those gardens regularly any more (they’re attached to apartments that have been rented out) and I shudder to think what I’ll find when I get back in there at the end of the leases.
Spent YEARS pulling horrible creeping euonymus, then tackled the pachysandra thickets, which took another few years. Now all I have to do is keep the dandelions, ajuga, vinca, Grandpa Ott’s, physestegia, English ivy, garlic mustard, convallaria, and forget-me-nots in check. My feverfew and poppies spread like crazy, but I like them. Sometimes I think building a garden is more about taking out than putting in.
Japanese Knot-weed is my nemesis. Also called River Weed or River Bamboo by the locals here. The person who owned the house- and 6 acres of land- before us, thought he could get rid of a large stand of Knotweed by ploughing it up and spreading the soil around. Oy vey! It appears everywhere and a smidgen of root is all that is needed to start a whole stand of it. My fight will continue, I’m sure, long after I’m old and feeble…….
I, too, have been hoping to eradicate houttuynia. I have been using Roundup . . . the only thing I use it for. I thought I had been successful, but it emerged again this year. I patrol almost daily. I’m sorry to hear the Roundup is not taken up by the roots, although my experience supports that. It seems to be somewhat more resistant in the area in which it originated,i.e., it comes back more heavily in this area. I will also dig up roots this year. No wonder its an herbal remedy for cancer!
Me too…After planting Hoot around my pond in a pot no less, it has found it’s way to places I never dreamed. Desperately trying to dig it up to get a grip and get my garden back. I am not giving up but perhaps will have to give in a bit in order to get my garden passable for the season. Right now looks like a bomb hit it or a giant size gopher.
Signed, Lesson learned.
Have read these posts and yours, Ms. Roach, with a mix of reassurance and empathy. Can mentally hear “check” on each thuggish variety mentioned. Houttuynia has fortunately has been battled in clients’ yards, not my own. But Trumpet Vine (Campsis radicans) has been on my personal hit list for almost 15 years. I joke that someone who “used” to be my friend shared it with me. :) Wormwood (Artemsia absinthium), Japanese knotweed (Fallopia japonica) have also been top grinches on my list. Garlic mustard is battled valiantly in citified woodlands here–kind of like a thumb in the proverbial dike. I always imagine it’s Mother Nature’s strategy for keeping us humble…
So sorry, Hulojimo. What a nightmare the thing is. The plant that ate the planet. UGH.
There once was one chameleon plant and one knee high bamboo around what once was a big earth pond. But the pond wall leaked,and we abandoned the pond to nature. (But there is still a little pond next to it, for the frogs.) For years now, this (former) big pond has been a catch-all place for thorny locust, dogwood, redbud, sycamore, alianthus, wild horse tail, blackberries and very tall wild roses, etc. and Virginia creeper, honeysuckle & wisteria vines on the fence and trees around it. (I had a mature 30foot clematis on part of the fence before the honeysuckle took over…and shaded out the iris, daylily & peony bed.) There was also some very invasive Chinese grass there, too. (It was onced used to pack breakable tableware shipped to the United States.) I forget it’s name, but it is knee high and looks great-somewhat like bamboo-but it is soo finely rooted that you cannot get every baby root-which wraps around your favorite plants. And then there are poplars and self-seeded peach trees on the south bank, complete with wild grapevine. (But no sumac or maple or “cedar” or scrub pine trees,..yet.)
I went in the old pond area and dug up a poor Lespedeza Gibraltar that was dying from being too shaded. (It used to drape artfully over the pond edge.) And I sprayed Round-Up on a poison ivy while I was there, too. I’ll go get the tall varigated clump of grass, next. But I hope I don’t inadverdently dig up and carry along any of the bamboo or horse tail. I think the fine bamboo-like grass succombed to the shade-but not to worry-I have plenty everywhere else. And don’t even get me started on the two kinds of creeping weeds that consume my flower beds every spring. (They will grow on mulch.) And the sticky weed that breaks off when you try to pull it, so that you have to pull each piece one at a time. I’m beginning to just plant taller things-and call the weeds “ground-covers”. I’m almost 60, and have obviously let things get away from me. (Having Lymes twice might have something to do with it-but I digress.)
Anyway, one of my goals this year is to just kill off some of the wild hickories and black walnuts that are sprouting up everywhere. These trees grow fast and have a VERY deep, undiggable taproot. (And I’ve got the heavy, strapped tree transplanting spade that tried!) There are three of these that I sawed down that were between 4 to 6 feet high, and even with round-up on the stump, they still keep sprouting for years. (I even moved back the edge of a flower bed this year, so that my husband could run over the new sprouts with his lawn mower.)
It is an absolute jungle out here on my seven acres in the Smoky Mts. of East TN.
But then, I see the wild blue veronica in the lawn, and I feel better. (There ARE many good trees, flowers, and ferns growing here, but I’m on a rant now!)
But back to the Chameleon plants that used to be in the pond area…I think they died. No, honest. What with the shade and the tough competition, I don’t remember seeing any. This makes me wonder if perhaps you should purposely plant something -ike mint-into the Chameleon plant. Yes, I (now) know mint is invasive. I upweeded at least a couple of hundred pounds of it a few years ago. That was exhausting, but I don’t have mint in that 60 foot long bed anymore. (Well, almost none.) You see, you can remove mint. And maybe before you do, it will kill of the Chameleon plants, so maybe you should try it.
What have you got to lose?
Meanwhile, I’ll go back to verify that the Chameleon plants are really gone-on a day when I don’t mind washing my long hair to get the ticks out of it. (I’ve gotten 3 crawlers off of me already this year.)
Jeannette M. Wilson
czechbookblues@yahoo.com
when I first saw the picture you posted of the plant Houttuynia cordata, I thought oh how lovely! I then realized I have a whole lot of them in my garden but they are in just the right place (planted by previous owners) The ground is very stony so I really don’t think I could rid my garden of them if I wanted to, it would definitely be a job and a half!
I love the different colors of this plant but then in the autumn they do g ‘rusty’ which makes them look awful.
Anyway thanks Margaret now I know what my plants are called.
In previous houses I had an artemisia problem, and a canadian anemone issue. They had piggybacked with some favourite plants when we moved, so on my last move, I made sure that I didn’t bring anything that was even remotely close to those runners. The canadian anemone was something my mother in law dug up from a ditch on a vacation, it gives me a terrible rash.
This house has a lovely patch of goutweed at the side of the house. I was going to put a tarp over it for a few years, but I think I’ll just leave it. I wouldn’t be planting anything there anyway. There are a few sprigs that keep popping up in my backyard, but I just won’t plant anything there until I have them gone for a couple years. It has only been three years now.
I am now on my 7th year of trying to get rid of the Chameleon plant I innocently bought a the farmers market. Finally last year I resorted to the chemicals. First my husband sprayed some powerful broadleaf killer. Then I sprayed with round up every other week for the rest of the summer. I lost a lot of goodies from the slightest overspay. But this Spring….. there it is again. Concrete???
Then again, you could always eat it instead of feeling like you’re constantly losing the battle with it. Vietnamese consider this plant a culinary delight. http://vietherbs.com/herb-directory/fish-herb/ PFAF has a very informational page on its culinary and medicinal uses: http://www.pfaf.org/user/Plant.aspx?LatinName=Houttuynia+cordata
Hi, Beth. Yes, edible (but the thought nauseates me! the smell is bad enough). Fascinating, though.
Wow. I’m involved with two community gardens. In one garden we have: English Ivy, Morning Glory, AND Trumpet Vine! The trumpet vine is strangling a large Juniper.
Someone just got back all the vines, which must means they’re going to come back with double the force!
A new gardener keeps asking about catnip. He wants to grow catnip! I’m going to suggest/advise that he grow it in a separate container NOT directly into the ground. Do you think that will help? Or is the problem also with the seeds?
Sweet pea- Peral series- I ordered it two years ago and it looked so small, like it was dying, until last year when it exploded and climbed over every plant it could find! Tried to kill my evergreen, butterfly bush, lavender and even my japanese maple! I never water not watered it ever and routinely cut it back to the ground. I got so mad I have been trying to pull it out since it sprouted in January!! I have damaged it but it is still there!!
I bought some at a nursery, delighted to find it, two years ago. Fortunately I then read on Dave’s Garden to learn what planting conditions it likes. I put it on a bonfire after reading more about it. My problem plants, aside from crabgrass, are Anemone Canadensis(which at least allows other plants to live with it and is native-ish) , Lobelia Syphilitica, which is dull, very hard to get rid of, and self seeds everywhere, and finally, Indian Cup Plant or Silphium Perfolatum, which has invaded our entire river valley killing local natives, and is still being marketed as Native by nearby nurseries. Link to article here http://www.adirondackdailyenterprise.com/page/content.detail/id/508006/Cup-plant–a-hulking-prairie-perennial.html?nav=5144
Hi, Jennipher. I think it will sow around pretty ambitiously, so you will want to harvest the flowers/deadhead before they set seed. It can also spread from its rhizomes.
Is there any way to kill Creeping Charlie?
If there is, Lois, I have not found it. :) Like all lawn weeds, it’s trying to tell you something about your soil and conditions — by doing better than the desired lawn grasses, it indicates low fertility and other out-of-balance issues You can use various tactics to balance things and that may help. More info from SafeLawns.org here.
it’s been mint for us, luckily we never get tired of eating it;
golden rod, never get tired of looking at it;
the orange daylilies make me very happy in July,
so I tolerate them the rest of the year;
a runaway grape vine almost did me in though
and I can’t eat garlic mustard fast enough
funnily, many of the plants people have mentioned struggle along in our heavy clay soil: dead nettle, bishop’s weed, trumpet vine
I am so glad I am not alone in my battle with invaders.
I am fighting houttunyia at the front of my house, and gooseneck loosestrife at the back. And to make it worse I actually PLANTED both of these devil plants!
“Nice for shade” I thought, in the bliss of ignorance. The houttunyia is mingled among thick ivy under an ornamental quince. Digging it out is pretty much impossible (maybe with a backhoe:-) So I am hoping against hope that just continually pulling up every new shoot I can find will at least keep it from becoming the sea of houttunyia that greeted me after a wet summer last year. So far, at least on the surface, it is sort of working. ( I try not to think about where the roots might be going, but I haven’t found shoots far outside the original are yet ) I’m doing the same with the gooseneck – trying to get as much of the root as I can with each shoot that I pull out. I actually would like to maintain a small patch of the gooseneck, as I love the flowers both as an accent in shade, and for cut arrangements, so am hoping continual pulling will keep it more or less confined to one patch. In my garden, the houttunyia and gooseneck make my goutweed (yeah I have that too!) look almost mild mannered.
I hear you, Chris (and welcome). I have the gooseneck loosestrife, too! And goutweed. It’s a wonder we all ever have a proper garden at all, isn’t it? See you soon again, I hope (between rounds of weeding, right?) :)
I can sing in this choir! I am counting my blessings that when a nice neighbor with lovely gardens offered me some of her chameleon plant 20 years ago I hesitated, then turned her down. However, we have ivy trying to take over, even though I yank it out by the armload every year, and also garlic chives. Another friend said “I think every yard should have some garlic chives,” and it has seeded everywhere. It grows between the stones of our terrace and I cannot get it out completely–just yank off the tops periodically.
I also planted gooseneck loosestrife and have no regrets about that one–it’s in an area of heavy clay and dry soil, and it’s just about the only thing that will grow there. Well, that and Euphorbia Robbiae (Mrs. Robb’s Bonnet).
The only nemesis I share with others is gooseneck loosestrife ( a struggle of 3 years and counting). Black-eyed susan has travelled throughout the garden, including up
through the weed barrier under the gravel pathways. Three invasives that I don’t
remove because I like them, and they play well with others, are pansies, creeping
thyme and nigella (love-in-mist).
Some of you might find this handy: if you have problems with unwanted plants growing between the pavers in your patio or walk, use plain old boiling water. Just pour it carefully directly on the offender. In about a day the whole plant will be dead. I suppose it could work on the roots of plants in a garden bed too. Haven’t tried it though.
Thanks, Suzan. I do that in the cracks and crevices as well. Good reminder! Only issue with doing that in a bed: if you pour boiling water on soil, you will probably kill a lot of the things living in the soil in the process…the way chemicals can…so I don’t use it there, wanting to foster all the soil life I can.
It took a force of nature….Hurricane Ike, to finally get rid of the wedelia in my bay-front yard. Of course, it took everything else too, even the dirt. Now I battle spike rush in my raised beds and I swear, it’s worse.
Hi, Colleen. So many weeds, so little time (tee hee). Here too! Not sure which I hate most of all, frankly. Onward!
Don’t count on the hurricane killing something off. I thought the flooding here killed off some unwanted plants, but they’ve been reappearing these last two years. Japanese fern vine, cutting up other plants as it encircles them, with roots like tangled black wire that cut my hands, elephant ears, nutgrass, and others. I rolled up my yard almost 7 years ago and I can say I’m glad the liriope returned this year.
I did have friends eradicate kudzu by cutting it back to 1-2 feet from its start and sticking that end into a can of Round-Up, which it sucked into the roots. It stayed gone, aside from that coming from the neighbors’ yards, until they moved five years later. I don’t know, but I wonder if that method contains the poison so it doesn’t affect roots of other plants? I don’t like using poison, but some plants are evil.
PLANTAIN… UGH
sunday (yesterday) i spent FOUR hours on my knees digging up every last blasted one of them which had spread thru my grass in my wee garden….. a HUGE 3 foot tall by 2 foot tall huge bag of the stuff – and now of course left with lots of bare patches…. time for grass sowing. (which i swore i would never do .. .but its my landlords yard so i will do it to appease him – me i would cover with gravel and make more beds .. )
anyway, dont know HOW this particular plant came to my yard – and not interested in starting a plantain farm… hopefully i got all of it. if not. OMG. ;o
http://www.prairielandherbs.com/plantain.htm