Kentucky’s Least Wanted Plants

Mimosa or silktree, Least Wanted Plant 2015. A single mimosa can produce 10,000 or more seeds each year.

Each year, Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest, the Southeast Exotic Pest Plant Council and the Environmental Resource Management Center at Northern Kentucky University publish a poster showing plants that have proven to be invasive of Kentucky’s native habitats.

“These invasive plants spread by birds and seeds and they take over,” says Judy Ferrell with the Garden Club of Kentucky.

Least-Wanted Plant of 2017:  Japanese barberry
Native Alternatives: Virginia sweetspire, arrowwood, black chokeberry

Least-Wanted Plant of 2016:  Chocolate vine or five-leaf akebia
Native Alternatives: trumpet honeysuckle, Virginia creeper, crossvine

Least-Wanted Plant of 2015:  Mimosa or silktree
Native Alternatives:  alternate-leaf dogwood, red buckeye, American witch hazel

Least-Wanted Plant of 2014:  Porcelain-berry vine
Native Alternatives:  pepper vine, American wisteria, raccoon grape

Least-Wanted Plant of 2013: Autumn olive and Russian olive
Native Alternatives: common elderberry, black chokeberry, blackhaw viburnum

Least-Wanted Plant of 2012: Sweet autumn clematis
Native Alternatives: passionflower, Dutchman’s pipe, virgin’s bower

Least-Wanted Plant of 2011: Lesser celandine
Native Alternatives: lobed tickseed, celandine poppy, green and gold

Least-Wanted Plant of 2010: Privet
Native Alternatives: red chokeberry, ninebark, American holly

Least-Wanted Plant of 2009: Callery pear (bradford pear)
Native Alternatives: fringetree, rusty blackhaw, wild plum

Least-Wanted Plant of 2008: Princess-tree
Native Alternatives: yellowwood, northern catalpa, serviceberry