Ivy-leaved Toadflax

LeadFarmer

Trying to decide whether to introduce this to the garden, to grow up a stone wall.
Can't decide whether it's an invasive plant that's impossible to get rid of, or a nice bee friendly plant that just grows where other plants can't.
Anyone grow it in their garden?

Collareddove

I've introduced it just as you are proposing, to colonise a stone wall.  I love it and haven't noticed it being invasive - looks lovely on the wall.  Not noticed that bees are particularly keen on it though.

Dovefromabove

Not in this garden 😢… we don’t have the right places for it … but in our last garden it was a very welcome plant growing in cracks in the brick walls and in a slightly raised brick bed which edged the front path. Always pretty, never too much, and easily identified and removed if it did take root where it wasn’t wanted … add to that it’s usefulness to bees and it’s the nearest thing to a perfect plant I know. Love it. 

B3

I wouldn't actually say that I  grow it as such but it'll grow in dust in a corner or out of a container or flower pot. You can pull it out if you don't want it at all  or trim it to size. I suppose some might call it invasive, but it's a pleasure  to see and easy to pull out. Go for it!

Anna33

It's very lovely growing out of a stone wall, and I can appreciate it's a pretty thing to clothe the wall, but in my own experience it spreads like anything, into pots, between paving slabs, in forgotten corners etc. If you do introduce it, you will have it for life. I've moved gardens and I'm still trying to get rid of it...! It will easily swamp anything in a pot if you don't keep an eye on it. Not in a way that kills anything, just..... a lot of it.

Not the worst thing to have to keep battling, but it is certainly prolific and constant.

Don't know if that's helped with your decision, though!

Uff

Yes, I introduced it to my drystone walls in the garden, and don't regret it. I like it and don't find it invasive at all, in fact, I wish I had more of it. It's easily pulled out if it did become a nuisance. 

Dovefromabove

I wish it would grow here … 😞 

B3

Why won't it grow in your garden @Dovefromabove?
It literally grows in dry dust in a corner up a drainpipe here.. Maybe you're being to nurturing.. Shove it in a corner in the contents of your hoover and ignore it. It'll be fine.

bertrand-mabel

We never introduced but it came. Yes it is a lovely plant BUT it does decide to take over.

It covers flat areas very easily and we have to be on the look to prevent it going even further.

Never had it growing upwards always across.

B3

All directions here. 

tlchimera

It's very easy to remove, just give it a tug. 
My grandmother loved it and grew it deliberately in the south of England. I live in an old mining village in South Wales and it's all over the front gardens, just scrambles around doing its thing and, as B3 says it literally grows in a dry patch of dust, shade or sun. It loves the rubbishy edges where nothing but dandelions, bittercress and willowherb will even attempt to inhabit. It doesn't climb much for me, but I've got rendered pebbledash from somebody getting fancy in the seventies and there's less to grip on to, rather than the traditional walls the other houses have, it climbs on older brickwork with joy. 

I don't consider invasive. I do find it hard to transfer though - it won't take in my mother's garden, but there's very little dry about her clay quagmire, she's just sentimental about it. I don't notice bees on it, they prefer other things.