Avoid Using Invasive Plants in Holiday Decor!

During the holidays, many people use live plants to decorate homes or businesses. Avoid using invasive plants such as Bittersweet (Celastrus Orbiculatus) and Multiflora Rose (Rosa Multiflora) in holiday decorations. Though attractive, using invasives can significantly impact native species and habitat. Birds eat and carry away the fruits from wreaths and garlands and the digested but still-viable seeds sprout where deposited.

Invasives create severe environmental damage, invading open fields, forests, wetlands, meadows, and backyards, and crowding out native plants. Bittersweet can even kill mature trees through strangling. Both plants are extremely difficult to control; when cut off, the remaining plant segment in the ground will re-sprout. It is illegal to import or sell bittersweet and Multiflora rose in any form (plants or cuttings) in Massachusetts. Learn more about invasive plants in Massachusetts and how they threaten our native species and natural communities.