Midlands gardeners, beware: 103 plants are banned for sale in SC

If you’re swapping cuttings with neighbors in Lexington or browsing nurseries around Irmo this spring, here’s something worth knowing before you plant: South Carolina has banned 103 plants from sale across the state — and a few of them might already be growing in your yard.

The list, maintained by Clemson University’s Department of Plant Industry, targets invasive species that crowd out native plants, damage ecosystems and sometimes even raise fire risk. For Midlands gardeners who pride themselves on healthy landscapes, knowing what’s on the list — and what to plant instead — matters.

The worst offender on Clemson’s list

Topping the list of concerns is cogongrass, a perennial grass native to Southeast Asia that arrived in the U.S. in the early 1900s.

“Many would argue that Cogongrass is the worst terrestrial weed on our list with an ability to overtake all native plants in a landscape and increasing fire threats where it’s present,” said Steven H. Long, the assistant director and state plant regulatory official with the Department of Plant Industry at Clemson University, according to The State.

Cogongrass is also classified as a federal noxious weed and infests 153 billion acres worldwide, Long said. It’s a major problem throughout the Southeast.

What makes cogongrass especially dangerous for home landscapes? It spreads easily and is nearly impossible to kill.

“A single Cogongrass plant can produce thousands of seeds, which are then carried by wind, water, animals, and even human activity,” the North American Invasive Species Management Association notes. “Its dense rhizome network allows it to survive fires, droughts, and even some herbicides, making eradication efforts particularly difficult.”

Even more troubling for gardeners: an ornamental variety of cogongrass was once sold in nurseries, and it could revert back to its invasive parentage. If you’ve got ornamental grass of unknown origin, it’s worth identifying.

The Bradford Pear finally got banned

If you’ve lived in the Midlands for any length of time, you know the Bradford Pear — those puffy white spring trees that line subdivisions from Lexington to Northeast Columbia, and produce that infamous unpleasant smell every March.

Callery Pear, the parent species, was added to the banned list in 2019. As of 2024, its cultivar, the Bradford Pear, is now banned for sale in South Carolina. The trees are notorious for cross-pollinating with wild Callery Pears, producing thorny thickets that overrun fields and forest edges.

If you have a Bradford Pear in your yard, you don’t have to remove it — but you can’t buy or plant a new one. Native alternatives include serviceberry, fringe tree and Eastern redbud, all of which give you spring blooms without the ecological damage.

Watch out for fig buttercup and floating hearts

Three other plants worth knowing about were added back in 2015: Crested Floating Heart, Yellow Floating Heart and Fig Buttercup.

The floating hearts are aquatic plants often found in water gardens. Crested Floating Heart was first detected in Lake Marion in 2006 and has since spread throughout Lake Marion and Lake Moultrie. Long said Water Hyacinth is commonly regarded as the worst aquatic weed and is on the banned list.

Fig buttercup is one Midlands gardeners should be on the lookout for. The Department of Plant Industry has found colonies along the tributaries of the Reedy River in Greenville and the Catawba River in Rock Hill — meaning it’s not far from our backyards.

“The flowers of this invasive species bear the sweet smiles of its buttercup cousins,” Clemson says on its website. “But fig buttercup is a bully that will do its best to crowd out all other plants in its chosen territory, establishing a monoculture that can damage or even destroy nature’s natural ability to prevent erosion and to provide food and shelter for wildlife, especially bees and other pollinators.”

How plant swaps and shared soil spread the problem

Here’s where Midlands gardeners can unintentionally make things worse.

“Although banned from commercial sale, it’s not uncommon for backyard gardeners to unknowingly trade and move the illegal plants due to their beauty,” Long said.

He pointed out that people often see plants in the wild and dig them up to take home, not realizing they’re invasive. The floating hearts and fig buttercup were both once sold in the nursery trade.

Soil is another culprit. “Both intentional and inadvertent soil movement has contributed to countless invasive species infestations,” Long said. So that bucket of dirt your neighbor offered? It might come with seeds or rhizomes you don’t want.

What’s not on the list — and why

You might be surprised to learn that kudzu, Chinese Privet, Tree of Heaven and Japanese Stiltgrass are not banned. Long called them “invasive thugs” but said they were too widespread by the time their invasiveness was acknowledged.

“Since kudzu isn’t sold in the nursery trade, no effort has been made to list it to make it illegal to sell,” Long said. “Therefore, our list only includes invasive plant pests that we view as ‘able to be regulated’ in some way.”

He cautioned that the list isn’t a complete guide to invasive plants in South Carolina.

“There are hundreds, if not thousands, of plant pests in SC,” he said.

For Midlands gardeners, the takeaway is simple: ask before you plant, know before you swap and check Clemson’s resources when in doubt.

This report was produced with the assistance of a proprietary tool powered by artificial intelligence and using our own originally reported, written and published content. It was reviewed and edited by our journalists.

This story was originally published June 6, 2026 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Midlands gardeners, beware: 103 plants are banned for sale in SC."