Native Alternatives to Invasive Plants

Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s All-Region Guides

by C. Colston Burrell

The biggest enemy of any garden is not a pest, disease, or poison—it’s any plant with tougher survival skills than the plants it competes with. The best way to weed out the invaders is with this fiendishly clever guide to native plants that can seek and destroy the top 100 most unwelcome perennials, grasses, vines, shrubs, and trees. While replacing the invaders, the beautiful, hardy native plants described here also attract native birds and butterflies, while turning away their own enemy invaders. Word-and-picture guides provide tips on care and maintenance, while helpful “at a glance” boxes depict shapes, sizes, best locations, and most attractive features of each native alternative.

Genres: Gardening, Nonfiction, Nature, Plants

240 pages, Paperback

First published September 28, 2006

About the author

C. Colston Burrell is a garden designer, photographer, naturalist and award winning writer. He is author of several books, including Hellebores: A Comprehensive Guide (winner of the 2007 AHS Book Award), Native Alternatives to Invasive Plants, Rodales Illustrated Encyclopedia of Perennials, revised in 2004, Perennials for Todays Gardens, Perennial Combinations, (a Garden Book Club best selling title) and A Gardeners Encyclopedia of Wildflowers (winner of the 1997 AHS Book Award). Cole serves as contributing editor to Horticulture magazine. He lectures internationally on topics of design, plants and ecology. He has undergraduate degrees in Botany and Horticulture, an M.S. in Horticulture and a Master of Landscape Architecture degree from the University of Minnesota. He is a lecturer in the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Virginia."

Reviews

[Nathan Albright · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is easy to credit this book with good intentions. The author has an obvious desire to encourage the greater use of plants that have been neglected among America's native plants in exchange for exotic and invasive plants that are popular but that can crowd out native plants that the author thinks are worthy of more attention. That is certainly a noble aim and one that is easy to celebrate, but this book has a few things against it that keep it from being as helpful in its goals as it could have been. For one, this book has a massive scope and thus a rather superficial approach. The author tries to write about native and invasive plants all over the entire United States, and this is far too wide of a scope for the rather basic approach that the author takes. The other issue is that the author writes about plants with a rather fussy and even snobby, not stopping to think about why it is that certain plants are grown outside of their native regions as opposed to others, even if the author can make a strong case for why some other plants should be cultivated more than they are.

This book is a bit more than 200 pages and it is dominated, as one would expect, by the book's titular materials. The book begins with a discussion of how to prevent plant invasions, a look at the role of roadside managers, as well as some questions and answers about invasive plants and native plants, including the plant provinces of North America. After that point, the vast majority of the book consists of a rather superficial and basic (although very beautifully photographed) discussion of invasive trees, shrubs, vines, herbaceous plants, and grasses and some native alternatives. It should be noted that as the scope of this book is the plants of North America that native plants are defined rather broadly across broad regions of the United States. Some invasive plants, for example, are expanding in a range from Canada to Hawaii to Florida, which is just an immense amount of space to cover and to suggest alternatives for. After that the author discusses places where one can get more information, as well as some information about the book's contributors, a list of invasive garden plants, as well as an index of invasive and native plants for the reader to consider.

One of the more interesting aspects of this book is the question of who the book's audience is. While this book is very interesting in its visual aspects--the strongest aspect of this book is the richly colorful photography about the trees and other plants that the author discusses--the book is not really aimed at the ordinary reader. Rather, this book is aimed at people who make choices about what plants to cultivate in public spaces like roads and parks and other public spaces. This is not a book about gardening with native plants--which is certainly an interesting and worthy subject--buy rather about the public policy question about which plants get chosen to be planted in public places, and what that means when it comes to celebrating plants that the author views as being threatened by invasive species including the edible fig plant as well as European aspen, to give but a couple of examples among many. This book would be easier to enjoy if it had a less irritating tone, and while it may seem a bit harsh to judge a book because of questions of tone, that is a matter that I find rather seriously important when it comes to books I read for pleasure and information, and it is an area that could have easily been fixed if the author had stepped down from his Olympian heights to ponder why it is that some plants are chosen over others as a general rule.

[Pam · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a great book which will help you focus on native plants rather than many of the invasive non-native plants that dominate our landscape. I am thrilled that this issue is increasingly coming to the forefront and I can even see changes occurring in the retail market. But as a gardener implementation of this philosophy is not without issues. First, the availability of many of these plants is limited and surely the author is not promoting that they be dug from the wild. Sure there are native plant nurseries but they often require people to travel extremely long distances. Secondly, and sadly, many of these non-native invaders are now happily settled in the wild so any changes made by landowners would not reduce their presence or spread. I wish Burrell had done some rating system of the danger these invaders present to the landscape and provided information on where they are now common place versus where we might be able to stop their spread. I know that in the scientific community including Nature Conservancy, there is some acceptance that many of these marauders are now here to stay and we should focus on the worst of the group.

[Kathy (McDowell) Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love love love this book! I was shopping recently at Lowe's for some vegetable plants for my garden. I was appalled at the outrageous number of non-native and invasive species of flowers and trees. I had to leave before I started screaming. Stop buying non-natives, people! It's easier to grow native plants. If we plant them in the right spot, they're pretty much guaranteed to grow. And if we're not sure what natives to plant, there are marvelous books like this one. It's so refreshing to see books and websites dedicated to native alternatives. I borrowed this book from the library and found that I just had to have it. It took me a while to find a copy. I know that I will be referring to this book frequently as I plant my natural gardens. Lazy lawns are the new thing for 2021.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very useful book, especially for someone like me who is relatively new to understanding the importance of using native plants. I was a little surprised to see the recommendation to use trumpet vine (Campsis radicans), which is a native but also wildly difficult to control. They did not offer as an alternative the native Crossvine (Bignonia capreolata) which also has orange trumpet shaped flowers and is loved by hummingbirds and WON’T take over your yard.

Still, I came away with a lot of ideas for future gardening. There were just two things that would have made this a 5-star book for me: 1) little maps of the ranges for each of the plants instead of verbal descriptions (“Nova Scotia to Michigan, south to Alabama” is hard for me to picture and 2) a little more information about the invasives beyond their names and ranges.

[Angie Carter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Would have liked a bigger picture of the invasive species and pictures of the leaves, flowers, berries, etc of the invasive species. Also would have been nice to have a color coded North American map showing the range of the native alternatives.

[Rick Jackofsky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good descriptions of the native plants, but not much info on the invasive species.

[Eva · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent book, and I will be purchasing it for my home library in the near future. The one thing I don't like about the book is that the pictures of the invasive species are SO small. I'd gladly pay a few extra dollars for bigger pictures of the invasives, so I know what I'm looking for.

[Steve H · Rating 4 out of 5]

A simple guide listing the bad plants most people have growing in their yards and native alternatives. I just wish the alternatives were as quick and easy to grow as the invasives that are taking over.

[E Sweetman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this is a good read for all gardeners, those who bring home plants or bouquets with invasive species in them.
A cautionary tale to those who toss berry wreaths out for the birds--you could end up with choking vines pulling down the local trees.

[Beth Kakuma-Depew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Facinating! Although I agree with the other reviewer who wished for sections divided by growing zones. And the pictures of the invasives are really small, as though they expected the reader to already be familier with them. But I guess that's what google images are for...

[Kayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great recommendations plus photos. I wish one of these days that someone would write a book about perennials that didn't list them in alphabetical order by scientific name, but by biome, or forb, or growing zone. Oh well.

[Steven McKay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Far from comprehensive but highly valuable anyway. In no uncertain terms, this book demonstrates that there are good native alternatives for the invasive plants that increasingly dominate our home landscapes.

[Bobbi · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent book for finding plants you can successfully and easily substitute for invasives. No one should be growing invasive plants. Learn what they are and get rid of them as fast as you can!

[Gail Richmond · Rating 5 out of 5]

Encyclopic in nature and covering most areas of the North America, Brooklyn Botanic Garden's all-region guide is a helpful tool on planning landscape gardens and avoiding imported pest plants.