The worst invasives
The few plants doing the most harm where you live, and how to remove them.
Last updated October 2026
A few garden plants escape and do real damage: they smother woods, shade out wildflowers and seed into wild places. Each region lists its worst five, ranked by local experts' rating, then by how often each is seen growing wild. Every plant on a list has a page: how to recognize it, and how to remove it for good by hand.
How you use it
- Open your region's list from its page, or from Worst invasives.
- Tap a plant for the three surest ways to recognize it.
- Follow the removal steps: the root piece that resprouts, the stump that suckers.
- Plant a native in the gap, so the bare ground doesn't invite the next seedling.
How bad is it here?
Where the people who survey a region have rated a plant, the page shows their rating in three steps:
- Takes over: it changes the place itself; the natives go.
- Gaining ground: doing real damage, but not remaking the place.
- In patches: loose in the wild, and so far staying local.
Found one in your garden?
If you’ve linked iNaturalist, importing your photos into a saved spot can add the invasives others have confirmed there to a list on that spot’s page. See Linking iNaturalist.
“Invasive” is about what a plant does, not where it's from: most plants moved to a new place never spread. Why we say it that way.
Goes well with
Learn more
- Why invasive plants are a problem — National Invasive Species Information Center
- Report an invasive plant you've found — EDDMapS (University of Georgia)
Recent changes
The latest updates to this part of the app, in the same plain notes that go out with each update.
Version 1.1
October 17, 2026- the Scottish Lowlands get their most-wanted list — NatureScot's priorities, like giant hogweed and Himalayan balsam, plus giant rhubarb and two butterburs spreading from old gardens.
- Bohemian knotweed, English hawthorn, yellow flag iris and old man's beard each have a page on how to spot and remove them.
- The Pacific Northwest's worst invasives now go ten deep, ranked by how much harm Washington's ecologists found each one does to wild habitat. Scotch broom, herb-robert and English ivy follow until those ecologists rate them.
Version 0.41
October 12, 2026- chinaberry, Johnsongrass, bastard cabbage, glossy privet and nandina, with how to tell each one and how to clear it without chemicals.