PlantFiles: Pink Knotweed
Persicaria capitata

In a benign climate like ours, this plant is so invasive it will choke out almost anything, and it will not respect any form of boundary because the tiny seeds spread everywhere. I suppose if your purpose were to cover an old asphalt roadway that you didn't want to tear up you could plant a few seeds in the cracks and let this take care of it. It is not easy to get rid of because of the profuse seeding. BEWARE!

P.S.The plant is also identified as Polygonum capitatum by the USDA.

In Deer Park, Tx
This is a perennial groundcover. My girlfriend in same neighborhood has it all over her yard. I'm having a hard time even rooting it. (It's going to work this time)
I think it is very pretty.

I always thought it was pretty, when in other people's landscape. Though uninvited, it self-seeded from flower beds some100 yards or so away and it has now taken over 3 of my large flower beds and I'm AGGRESSIVELY removing it. It has choked out all other plants including Stachys byzantina or Lamb's Ear, a once beautiful creeping wooly thyme, many beautiful clumps of Cerastium tomentosum 'Snow in Summer', a gorgeous sedum ground cover and my annuals are unable to reseed, i.e. lobelia, which readily self-sows. I still think it is pretty and in the right place, a good filler, but I don't have that kind of spot. Be careful w/this one.

One of my plant books also gives this the common name of 'Pink bubbles' I've also heard it called 'Pink buttons'.
It makes a nice and interesting ground cover. The more sun it gets the deeper the color on both the foliage and the small button like flowers. And it's pretty drought tolerant.
Here in my zone 8b garden in the Pacific Northwest it dies back completely in the winter and comes back each spring. I'm not having the the same problem with it being so invasive as others are having. Maybe the fact that it goes completely dormant here keeps it from being too aggressive?

This plant competes on equal footing with oxalis as being aggressive to the point of invasive. In a frost-free zone I would be very careful where this plant is sited. It will literally travel hundreds of feet and pop up where it is least expected, which is not necessarily a virtue! It is very pretty in flower, however, and pulls up fairly easily. Apparently pest-free as well.

Pink Knotweed self seeds readily where climate permits (zones 8-9). Native to China and the Himalayas, this plant is a member of the buckwheat or dock family. Its foliage is evergreen in milder climates.

Very vigorous vining ground cover. Can be invasive. Leaves are deep green with burgandy chevrons. Stems are reddish and the flowers are tiny pink balls.