Paying for noxious weeds

One of our biggest pet peeves is walking into a commercial nursery and finding plants for sale that are considered noxious weeds. Washington has a state law that requires citizens to help control noxious weeds, but that doesn’t always mean you can’t find it for sale in various places. In our opinion, no Seattle landscape should have English ivy, English holly, Scotch broom or any of the numerous other weeds that spread like rapid-fire and choke out our native plants and take over natural landscapes.

Ivy in particular is vicious because it’s well-adapted to our climate, grows year-round West of the Cascades, and can cover everything in its reach. It’s hard to get rid of it once it has taken over your landscape, so we recommend the next best thing: prevention. Don’t buy any ivy (or other noxious weeds) if you can help it, even if you find a tiny little plant at the nursery and think it can’t be that harmful.

Milk thistle is a noxious weed.

King County has a noxious weed control program that tries to keep noxious weeds like Himalayan blackberry and Italian thistle, just to name a few, out of our streams, parks, and public lands. Don’t know what is a noxious weed? King County has a terrific photo index to help you identify which ones are noxious. Some are nasty-looking, like the milk thistle pictured right, but many have pretty yellow or pink flowers. Find out more by reading this citizen’s guide to noxious weeds.