Down to Earth | Plant this, not that
- Published: August 1, 2025
By the YS Habitat Team
June was National Pollinator Month, and replacing invasive plants with native plants is one of the easiest ways to help our declining pollinator population on your property.
Invasive plants and noxious weeds may have beautiful flowers or stunning foliage, but they are dangerous invaders in our ecosystems, often innocently planted in our gardens and then escaping cultivation, ultimately crowding out the native species on which pollinators depend.
Below is a list of native plants that can be replacements to common invasive ones. The berry-producing plants, such as winterberry and spicebush, will provide bluebirds and other bird species a nutritious food source in the fall and winter.
Replace:
• Japanese honeysuckle with coral honeysuckle
• Amur honeysuckle with spicebush
• Garlic mustard with bee balm
• Lesser celandine with golden ragwort
• Dame’s rocket with woodland phlox
• Purple loosestrife with gayfeather or queen of the prairie
• Common privet with winterberry or gray dogwood
• Asian bittersweet with Virginia creeper
• Wintercreeper with bearberry
• Japanese barberry shrub with chokeberry or Virginia sweetspire
• Burning bush with highbush blueberry or fragrant sumac
• Butterfly bush with Joe Pye weed
• Glossy buckthorn with arrowwood Viburnum
• Common buckthorn with witch hazel
• Autumn or Russian olive with button bush, fringe tree or red buckeye
• Multiflora rose with pasture rose
• Norway maple tree with sugar maple
• Callery pear tree with serviceberry, fringe tree or black gum
For more information, go online to http://www.YSWildlifeHabitat.com.
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