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?)
I’ve been fighting Vinca minor in the beds in the retaining wall in front of my house, and the terraced veggie garden, because when the mason excavated the front hillside, some bits of root ended up in the backfill he used for both areas.
The spearmint that was up at the top of the wall (undisturbed) spreads quite a bit, but I am able to keep up with it – mulched up it works well as a deer deterrent. Also in that same bed, I’m letting Lily of the Valley, Echinacea purpurea, and some yellow Yarrow naturalize. I’m hoping that it’ll fill in the voids in the newly-expanded bed and crowd out the weedy grasses and oxalis that like to grow in the amended soil (at least they’re easier to pull than the ones growing in the straight up shale/clay soil)
BISHOP’S WEED!! Still finding patches of it 21 years later! HELP!!
My nemesis is Alstrommeria( beautiful yellow Peruvian Lily) and Campanula rapunculoides. The spread by seeds, stolons & tap root. The more I try to dig them up, the more they seem to spread. My strategy now is to pull the new growth once it flowers and not let it go to seed. I’m hoping to eventually weaken by not allowing the tubers to be fed by the foilage. The Alstromeria behaved for many years, then went beserk. Bamboo(both Golden & Black) which I love no longer lives in my ground behaved the same way. In my sandy soil, they eventually became uncontrollable. After much back breaking work I enlisted a backhoe to dig out the 10′ canes. I was vigilant for 2 years removing any sprouts from the smallest piece. I haven’t had any more signs of bamboo for the last 3 years. i’m now keeping a watchful eye on the Campanula Takseimana
I have decided to get rid of some old copies of “The English Garden” (going to a gardening friend). Yesterday I was flipping through some issues and giggled when I came across a nice English gardener recommending houttunyia, and gunnera, and some other thugs we have discussed here. Maybe it’s different when you have acres and acres. I certainly don’t.
Thanks, Margaret, for cautioning against using boiling water to kill off unwanted plants. Would vinegar between my terrace stones to kill the blankety-blank garlic chives have the same drawbacks? I would urge everyone not to use chemicals anywhere near a pond.
Yes, Donna, it’s among the most-hated criminals in the garden, to be sure. Nice to see you, and commiserate!
I got a pretty white anemone from my mother years ago which failed to thrive in her garden. 5 years later that &*$#@ anemone has taken over my garden. It is impervious to all my attempts to rip it out…in fact, ripping it out just makes it stronger. Another of my mother’s gifts were day lilies she said were yellow, but turned out to be that horrid orange. Every summer I swear I will dig them out but all I have the energy to do is cut off the flower stalks, which only makes them stronger.
So sorry, Lisa, but yes, we all have our lovely inherited (or purchased!) $#$%^&**’s, don’t we? My bet is on the plants winning over here. :)
I have been battling the same weed for at least 15 years. I tried to locate the name of it but never see it in any weed books. It has roots that go down 6-12 inches!!! I feel good when I get a long root with new sprouts!!!! I have tried to cover places with layers of cardboard covered with mulch. It works a little but they seem to go to the light and pop up again!!! Grrrrr. I wish I could send a picture so somebody could tell me what it is and how to kill it!!!
My Queens, NY garden is pretty shady in some spots because of the Mc Mansion on one side and neighbor’s trees on the other. But i’ve lived and gardened happily here off and on for about 35 years. Three years ago, I bought a few bags of pine bark mulch ( for my 30 year old turkey fig ) that were infested with buttercup seeds or root threads. On the same shopping trip, I’ve got a 1/2 flat of Houttuynia for a deep shady but buggy spot. What a nightmare I’ve had fighting both. So after using the dreaded but apparently effective glyphosate last spring, Houttuynia seems to have slowed down-or taken a back seat to the real agressor -BUTTERCUP! It’s everywhere and traveling faster than I can keep up with it. As I write this, I have just pulled some from a very crowded pot of really old and prized aloe vera that summered on the deck and over-wintered in the dining room. I didn’t realize that buttercup was an invasive evil weed till after I had let them flower-you don’t see much of it in NYC.
Now after a year of smothering with black landscape fabric and newspaper, pulling and pulling, they’re back with a vengeance – spreading out between my (20 year old) raspberries and new strawberries, the shady spot on my lawn under the figs and even choking out the common orange day lilies-which usually choke anything else around. It’s even all over the homemade cold frame I created with compost and I thought clean garden soil for this spring’s spinach and salad greens. They are pushing up the top to escape!
I was thinking of getting a flame weeder-(sounds dangerous but effective) or roundup-(I’m almost that desperate but know I wouldn’t sleep or have any of my edibles survive). Or more Round-up. UGH! What’s in the middle? The black plastic or solarization didn’t work and I don’t really have beds – because of the shade and surrounding plants. What to do? Thanks in advance for any advice.
I think about the flame weeder, too, Nancy, but can’t imagine I could use it where I have the Houttuynia (under a magnolia) without damaging the tree roots. If you have areas where you can use it without cooking important things then I’d give it a try — we both know solarizing doesn’t kill off some of these tenacious darlings. I don’t use Roundup, so really digging and smothering are my choices.
I happily and smugly accepted a “gift” of chameleon plant over a decade ago and have been fighting it ever since. I’ve tried it all – black plastic for 2 years, RoundUp, vigilant digging of all roots – and it still comes back. The only thing that seems to work (but not perfectly) is Poison Ivy Killer. Now, my chameleon plant is in a flower bed and I cannot/will not spray the stuff on, so I pour it into a small plastic cup and (literally) paint brush it onto the leaves, wait 2-5 days and repeat. It does work, but again not perfectly. I am now a humbled gardener and much more suspicious of garden “gifts,” no matter how well meant!
This is a wicked plant, Heidi. Amazingly naughty. Sorry you know only too well how bad!