Some plants thrive. Others overwhelm. Our mountain mint is quite happy. Too happy in fact. It’s a vigorous plant, that’s no secret. Couple that with our amazing soil and the plant is stretching out like a bear waking up after a winter’s sleep. But to say it’s invasive would be incorrect. It’s vigorous, over ambitious, and an overachiever, sure, but not invasive. This is why we say all native plants are not ideal for the home garden. In our well-amended soil, mountain mint is a bit too much. In other areas, where the soil is quite miserable, it has not spread much at all, it’s almost polite.

I’ve experimented with new plants, well, new to me, and I find some are also a bit too much. Snow in summer (Cerastium tomentosum) makes me ridiculously happy when it’s in bloom. Then that delight is overshadowed with frustration as it spreads and spreads. If I had a tough hillside, where I didn’t need to worry about this non-native plant escaping, perhaps I would feel elation as it crawled about at will. However, in our side gravel garden it begs to be ripped out. On the plus side, if you want to work out some aggression or frustration, taking a heavy editing hand to this plant may make you feel better. And, as it is an overachiever, enough will survive and carry on, keeping the garden looking nice.

I am waiting with bated breath to see how generous our Penstemon digitalis is in the back garden. In our front garden we have Penstemon ‘Husker Red’ which is quite the re-seeder. Too much for my liking. But again, we have great soil and no mulch, so any plant that wants to reseed, can and will. Will the native Penstemon follow suit? Spring will tell.