Pass through any neighborhood in the city of Houston and you will pass by countless plants that are originally from Asia. Most likely you have more exotic plants in your yard than native plants and so do your neighbors. When you bought your house or moved into your apartment, most likely the non-native plants were already there.
Your plants did not come directly from Asia, but from a parent plant that was brought over a while back. The nurseries grow them as demand continues to increase. Residential and commercial builders love them and install them with good intentions. They know which plants do well and will use the same plants over and over. But the long term problems of using imported plants are many.
Let’s take a look at waxleaf ligustrum. It’s a plant that builders and contractors love to plant on job sites and they are widely used throughout Houston. And with good reason. It loves to grow in our heat and in any soil type and has low water requirements. It’s a fast growing, hardy evergreen with shiny dark green leaves and lovely white flowers. Its densely branched foliage used all over town as privacy hedges or as a buffer plantings. Most likely there is one growing very close to you right now.
But unfortunately, these plants can misbehave. We want them to be a low hedge or a nice little plant along the foundation of the building. They want to be 12′ tall and 8′ wide and, unless constantly maintained, their rapid growth makes them difficult to control. The battle begins the moment they are planted to keep the plant the size and shape you think it should be. Left unchecked, these hardy little shrubs become small trees. Attempts to control their size results in oddly shaped forms and sorry contorted plants.
The builders did not intend to pass along such a maintenance issue. When you redo your landscape and remove the misshapen ligustrums, select native plants that want to be the same size and shape that you desire in your yard. Not only are you making gardening simpler for yourself, you are improving the environment and providing much needed food and shelter for our native wildlife.
