Yet it is being promoted like mad by the Plant sellers!

Problem:

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ed...=Searc h+News

Local Plants are the best:

http://www.pennlive.com/newsflash/pa.../1079902477439
80.xml

Headline:

Pennsylvania News

Environmental and government groups tell gardeners to go native


The Associated Press
3/21/2004, 3:55 p.m. ET


READING, Pa. (AP) — Environmental and government groups have a message for
gardeners: Go native.


Nonnative plants in a back yard or flower bed may look lovely, like purple
loosestrife, or smell divine, like the honeysuckle vine, but they can choke out
wildflowers and other plants that are native to the area, said Susan Munch, an
Albright College associate biology professor.

"These are very aggressive plants. They grow very fast, put up leaves very
early in spring and grow so close together there's no room for others to grow,"
Munch told about 30 people at a workshop organized by the Pike Oley District
Preservation Coalition.

Some of the infiltrating plants came as seeds accidentally stowed in cargo in
ships arriving from Europe or attached to the fur of imported animals. In other
cases, conservancy and government groups intentionally developed and planted
the invasive species, Munch said.

For example, state and federal transportation departments planted the crown
vetch to hold soil along roads. The plan worked, but the invasive plant quickly
spread into surrounding woods, Munch said.

"The government wasn't well educated until very recently," she said.

Munch said the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources now is
working to educate people.

Awareness of invasive plants is crucial to keep gardeners from unintentionally
spreading the problem by sowing the seeds of invasive plants, said Phoebe L.
Hopkins, a member of Pike Oley group.

"Lots of times you order these things unknowingly" because plant catalogs don't
always identify plants as nonnative, Hopkins said.

Exeter Township resident Jim F. Houston said he recognized many of the plants
Munch described because he has been battling them in his own back yard.
Oriental bittersweet has been pulling down his trees and purple loosestrife has
been cropping up everywhere, he said.
-----------------

Butterfly Bush labeled an invasive:

http://www.invasive.org/eastern/midatlantic/budd.html

http://www.lebanon-express.com/artic...ine/news13.txt

http://www2.kval.com/x30530.xml?Pare...44478&Lay out
=kval.xsl&AdGroupID=x30530

---------------

Yet it is being promoted like Mad:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&l...uy+butterfly+b
ush&btnG=Google+Search

http://springhillnursery.com/search....+bush&x=12&y=3