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Re: The Lythrum issue

Lythrum is a contentious issue. I don't grow it myself, prefering to use Eupatorium in its stead (though garden designers will quickly point out the effect is not the same -- flat flowers versus spiky ones). Lythrum once migrated into my city garden without my having purchased it. (Perhaps it is was a plant pot hitchhiker.) I live on former farmland with a creek running by that is Lythrum-free and I certainly don't want to introduce it.
 
However, for an interesting contarian view on loosestrife, based on Canadian botantical research, have a look at an article by horticulturalist and garden writer Art Drysdale at http://icangarden.com/document.cfm?task=viewdetail&itemid=2667, which suggests among other things that Lythrum is a problem in disturbed environments, not natural ones.
 
-Yvonne Cunnington,
 
Andrew Messinger wrote:     Every few years I write an article on Lythrum.  It is a plant that is both magnificently beautiful and yet an environmental nightmare.  I have been pushing for it to be banned, I have asked growers to stop growing it and I have begged gardeners and designers to stop using it.  Mostly, to no avail.  Most gardeners are unaware of the dangers, most growers find it too lucrative not to grow (if they want it, we will grow it) and the designers...well, I won't even go there.
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