Gardener met with urgent warnings after sharing photos of mystery plants in backyard: 'My mortal enemy'

When it comes to weeding out invasive pests, few places on the internet are more useful than gardening subreddits. As a recent post shows, these online experts can easily spot invasive plants, call them by name, and suggest a way to eliminate them. All you need is a few images. 

For New Zealand gardeners, the go-to sub is r/nzgardening. That's where this recent post popped up:

The title of the post reads "What is this plant coming up at the bottom of my section? Invasive pest?" Included are several images that to the untrained eye look like nothing more than bushy green overgrowth. The trained eyes on the sub, however, were able to call out at least two invasive plants: black nightshade and tradescantia. 

These plants are a lot more than an inconvenience to the OP and their gardening efforts. Invasive species can cause chaos in an ecosystem and threaten its natural inhabitants. This is because outside species can disrupt the delicate balance in an ecosystem by overconsuming resources and overpopulating due to a lack of natural predators.

If the OP in this post wants to combat these invasive plants, they may want to consider a native lawn or perhaps rewilding their property. By allowing native plants to flourish in their yard, they contribute to a stronger ecosystem altogether. Rewilded properties offer habitats and food to local wildlife and a boost to crucial pollinators. 

Rewilded properties offer more benefits than that, too. They reduce your landscaping expenses and workload while also lowering your water bill. It's a win-win for you and the environment, and it can also make it more difficult for invasive species to take over.

Commenters to the OP's post offered some useful advice mixed with a little snark:

"It'd be easier to tell you what's not an invasive pest in these photos," one plainly states.

"Black nightshade mixed in with tradescantia, bad with the bad!" another exclaims.

Should the government be paying people to hunt invasive species? Definitely 👍 Depends on the animal 🤔 No way 👎 Just let people do it for free 🤷 Click your choice to see results and speak your mind.

"Tradescantia, my mortal enemy," another states.

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