Beyond the Third Rail

Invasive Series – Part 1 - A Long-View Look at Native and Invasive Plants

📝 Opinion  | By Guy Saldiveri | Updated January 27, 2026

Native, Non-Native, Aggressive, and Invasive

This is by far the most divisive hot-button, third-rail topic anyone can bring up in the gardening world. It certainly won’t win me any brownie points for bringing it up here. 

If I wind up in a debate with someone in the gardening community, chances are it has to do with a discussion on whether or not a particular plant is native, non-native, aggressive, or [gasp] invasive, and whether or not it should be grown in a backyard garden.

To come clean here, I’m a gardener. I love plants and I love growing them. To me, a plant is a plant is a plant. They don’t think, and they aren’t malicious; they just do what nature programmed them to do. Grow! And if you give them the right conditions and the right care, they will do just that. Just about all plants are aggressive and invasive by nature; some are just less well-behaved than others—at least temporarily.

Let’s start with the definition of what a native plant is:

According to “The Conservation Foundation,” “The textbook definition of native plants is that they are the plants that have been growing in an area prior to European settlement.”

It goes on to say: “Another way to define native plants is: Native plants evolved or adapted to our local environment for thousands of years, and are an important part of our local habitats, ecosystems and ecosystem services (pollination, infiltration, carbon sequestration, etc.). They are the most sustainable plants for our specific area. Our native plants not only adapted physically, but chemically and genetically.”

I’d like to focus on the first part—“Prior to European settlement.”  I can’t help but think: 

• “What if this area was colonized 500 years earlier?” 

• “What if this area was colonized 500 years later?”

I would be willing to bet that the native plant list would look a little different right now. Some plants we now list as invasive would probably be on the native list. Some plants currently on the native list probably wouldn’t be, and when they showed up, they would be classified as non-native and possibly invasive. 

Maybe a non-native, invasive plant is one that came in at the wrong time and didn’t have enough money to hire a really good lawyer? 

Okay that was a joke, but can anyone say for certain how long a particular species was present prior to colonization? I think it would be difficult. Even in this day and age, it’s not like you are going to carbon-date a living plant.

The point I’m trying to make is that they drew a hard line in a snapshot of time. 

This planet has been around for over 4.5 billion years. It has been evolving all that time and will continue to evolve long after we’re gone—if that day ever comes. 

Not all aggressive or invasive plants were intentionally brought into the area. It could have been nature itself that did it. After all, they all got here one way or another. A strong storm or a hungry bird might have eaten some seeds, flown a long way, and deposited them in your backyard. To me, this is just nature flexing its domain and evolving. Who’s to say that wasn’t by design? 

I might even find it somewhat arrogant to consider it anything but a natural evolution of things. 

Does it cause issues for a bit? It sure does. Will it reach a state of equilibrium eventually? I’m betting the answer to that is yes. Nature will always find a way. The flora, fauna, and fungi will evolve along with it to help keep aggression in check. It may look out of control for a while—okay, maybe a long while—but it will get its reality check. 

Think about this: an extremely long-lived person makes it to 100 years of age. In an ecological timeframe, that is not even a burp. 

Humans think in:

• seasons

• years

• decades

Nature thinks in:

• centuries

• millennia

• evolutionary cycles

I say nature will find a way; they say the damage will already have been done. 

Some damage will have been done, yes, but in reality, what I hear them saying is: 

“Nature will find a way, but not fast enough to satisfy my human sense of urgency.” 

I get this, but that doesn’t make it an ecological disaster.

Looking around, you won’t find any one species that completely dominates every landscape. Many have tried, though. By now the entire southern part of the United States should be one complete monoculture of kudzu, Chinese tallow, English ivy, wisteria, or [insert highly aggressive, non-native, invasive species of choice]. 

We should have:

• kudzu wall to wall from Texas to Georgia

• endless carpets of English ivy from Florida to Virginia

• Chinese tallow forests from coast to coast

• wisteria jungles swallowing entire states

We don’t, though, do we? Why? Because nature pushes back—insects, diseases, competition, soil shifts, drought cycles, shade changes, predators, fungi, and plain old ecological limits.

Even the worst offenders hit ceilings. They all eventually fail because nature shuts them down and gives them only so much freedom to roam.

There’s something else we need to consider as well before we tag a species as “invasive.” Most of the time these species pop up where no other ones have the capability to grow. It reminds me of the opening monologue in the Star Trek series: “To boldly go where no man has gone before.” 

Too far-fetched? Maybe. But these are pioneer species. They start out in areas that are too inhospitable for the native flora; hard, compacted soils, intense sun and heat, wet and waterlogged ditches. They are the first on the scene and will change the landscape in ways that will eventually allow the native plants to return and thrive. Remember, you see them because nothing else will grow there.

Tree-of-heaven, kudzu, privet, tallow, wisteria—pick your villain. They don’t typically march into healthy, intact ecosystems and conquer them. They show up in the places we’ve scraped, graded, burned, logged, paved, abandoned, or otherwise knocked out of balance.

If a plant is thriving where nothing else will grow, maybe the problem isn’t the plant. Maybe the problem is the fact that we have an area that is a blank canvas. And maybe what we’re seeing isn’t an ecological villain, but the first dabs of paint by the greatest painter of all time—nature itself.

I think the biggest issue is perspective and the fact that gardeners are not only good people; they also try to be a lot more in tune with the local ecology. I don’t hate them for that—on the contrary. I fully agree: we should absolutely watch out for the ecology. We just think differently when it comes to dealing with the problem. 

I can’t change what’s happening even if I wanted to. Is that fatalistic? Some say yes. I think it’s more realistic, to be honest. Yes, ecosystems get knocked around, some species spread very aggressively, some displace other, more desired species as well. We are in a living, dynamic environment that will be completely unrecognizable in 10,000 years. Thinking we can actually put a stop to that is where the arrogance comes into play. We can’t, and to be honest, we shouldn’t. This is nature doing what nature does.

I choose to sit on my back patio, coffee in hand, watching the sun rise and set, and just enjoy my surroundings. 

Life is good 🌱