5 MORE Popular Plants I Would NEVER Include in a Garden

A follow-up post to one of my most popular (and controversial) blog posts, 5 Popular Plants I Would NEVER Include in a Garden.

Here are 5 more popular plants that I would never include in a garden and that are worth avoiding!

1. English Ivy (Hedera helix)

English ivy might seem charming, draping over fences or crawling up trees, but this aggressive climber quickly becomes a problem. It smothers everything in its path, girdling trees, choking out native plants, and creating monocultures that offer little to no wildlife value. It's also incredibly difficult to remove once established, with roots that grip tight and regenerate from fragments.

What to grow instead: Honeysuckle vine or kinnikinnick.

2. Yellow Archangel (Lamium galeobdolon)

Also known as Lamium which is often sold as a shade-loving ground cover. While it can be pretty with its silver-streaked foliage, it spreads aggressively in moist, shaded environments, where it crowds out native understory plants. It roots along every node, making it incredibly invasive and very hard to control.

What to grow instead: Wild ginger, woodland strawberry, brunnera, or barrenwort

3. Chinese Wisteria (Wisteria sinensis)

Wisteria is known for its breathtaking flowers, but behind those beautiful blooms lies a bully in the garden with an aggressive growth habit. Its thick woody vines can collapse fences, crack pergolas, infiltrate house siding, strangle trees, and invade nearby plantings. Once established, Wisteria spp. are very high maintenance, often requiring pruning multiple times a year to prevent it from taking over, they're nearly impossible to remove, and it rarely supports pollinators in our region.

What to grow instead: Native honeysuckles, or clematis.

4. Running Bamboo (Phyllostachys spp.)

Bamboo is often marketed as a fast-growing privacy screen, but those roots don’t stop at your property line. Without serious root containment, it can become a neighbourhood nightmare. Spreading under fences, popping up through driveways and sometimes even house foundations. Even the so-called “clumping” types can be surprisingly expansive in our mild climate.

What to grow instead: For a fast-growing screening plant try growing osoberry! Or Pacific wax myrtle, red-flowering currant, and mock orange.

5. Wild Morning Glory (Calystegia spp. & Convolvulus spp.)

Morning glory aka. Bindweed may look charming with its blooms, but many varieties can quickly escape cultivation and go wild, FAST! Once they do, they twine around and smother everything in their reach, reseeding and spreading prolifically. They will regrow by root fragmentation, which makes them very difficult to control and are surprisingly resistant to sheet mulching and even herbicides.

What to grow instead: sweetpeas, scarlet runner beans, clematis, or farewell-to-spring.