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Persicaria maculosa

I would have rated this a strong negative -- it's a noxious weed that reseeds like it's going out of style and is nearly impossible to eradicate. *But*, last year I found a great use for it, which pushes it up to "neutral": it's a perfect distraction crop for Japanese Beetles. It doesn't seem to draw them to the garden (I didn't have any beetles for years even with the smartweed hanging about), but when they're there, as they were last year, they ate nothing but smartweed. In fact, they're the only insect I've found willing to eat the stuff. They pretty much skeletonize it and leave the rest of the garden alone.

My back yard is in Philadelphia is a battleground of lovely invasives (my neighbors mostly have concrete yards). My groundcover is a mixture of persicaria maculosa threaded through violets with a few punctuations of spiderwort, pokeweed, persicaria odorata and morning glory up the fences. It's quite lovely and virtually maintenance free. Since they're all invasive, I don't really have to weed or water except in the Spring when other invasives come up. I do have to take a machete to the morning glory now and then, but I'm quite thrilled with the results. Birds and squirrels LOVE my yard. I make a couple of wood-mulch paths through the green, set up a chair, and enjoy!

Hard to get rid of!

I know this as pinkweed.

I hate it, it grows everywhere, gets into everything and is just a pest. It especially likes disturbed soil so that if you weed or make new beds, you'll be sure to find it there.

An invasive little weed that spreads rapidly in damp areas. It's cheerful and cute, but even the smallest piece of a stem is capable of producing a new plant. When removing it from an area, care must be taken to get every shred of the stuff....even then it will take several seasons to rid it completely from a planting space. It produces a vast number of seeds that can lay dormant for great lengths of time and still remain viable.

The name Smartweed comes from the sap that sometimes causes ittitation when it comes in contact with the skin.

The seeds are attractive to songbirds and wildlife, but there are many plants that are less invasive that can serve that purpose....and this stuff is never going to be put on any endangered list.