Stop - Don't do this! Invasives

So I'm going to help a friend work on/design her front yard.  I can be a bit controlling, so I'm letting go and said my only rule is not planting any invasives.  We all make mistakes and I've made a few, but we should really just obliterate some plants from our landscapes. 

Here is a stretch of dirt along a wall outside the MacArthur Bart Station in North Oakland.  It contains 4 of our most invasive species all rolled into one tangled mass.

Who will win? My bets are on the ivy.

In the closeup you can see cotoneaster, vinca (periwinkle), and ivy.  Not pictured is Himalayan blackberry.

Why are these so terrible?  Well cotoneaster makes big, thorny thickets and just seems to reseed all over the place thanks to the birds.  Vinca will form a huge mat, keeping any other low-growing thing or seedling from growing.  And ivy here in the East Bay tends to just blanket hillsides and swallow up shrubs and even trees.  Not only do these guys spread, but they limit the diversity of plants in that area.

Instead of cotoneaster, plant toyon, a native plant that has similar foliage color and similar berries in the late fall/winter.  Though I think the toyon berries are nicer because they are a truer red, whereas cotoneaster berries have an orangeish tint.  So toyon branches can make a nice Christmas decoration.

We actually have a native blackberry (Rubus ursinus).  Why not plant that one?  Or maybe ollalaberries, not native, but not invasive as far as I know.  As for ivy and vinca, there are tons of groundcovers to choose from that will do the same job, but not get out of control.

I'm by no means a native purist,  but I think we should all agree to at least not plant things invasive in our areas.

Don't Do This - Vinca

So hopefully this will be the first in a series of blog posts entitled "Don't Do This," highlighting garden mistakes I see around town.

For this post, the spotlight is on vinca or periwinkle. It's a nice enough groundcover, with nice glossy foliage and pretty purple flowers. But vinca is incredibly invasive here in the Bay Area, so this is my main reason for it being on the "Don't Do This" list. It spreads and spreads and spreads. Not quite as bad as ivy, but you catch my drift.

These pics are an example of landscaping in front of Summit hospital in Oakland. They landscaped this fairly recently, maybe in the last 2-3 years. Many of the plants are drought tolerant, which is good. But then there is a border of vinca. In the pic above, you can see what they were trying to do with this planting. The vinca is supposed to form a green space between the sidewalk and the rest of the planting, and that little, black, plastic border is supposed to hold back the onslaught that is vinca.

In this next pic, you can see how they are trying to hedge the vinca to keep it behind the black border.

And in this last pic, you can see the overall effect. Not so impressive if you ask me. Now the question is, is this better than lawn?