Italian Arum from a friend’s garden is not a gift to your landscape

The Italian Arum’s common names of ‘Italian Lily’ and ‘Italian Lords and Ladies’ may stoke the gardener’s imagination but the actual plant is far from enticing.  Aside from having poisonous plant parts, its single spadix flower is unpleasant-smelling.  These disagreeable features however are not what makes this plant a noxious weed.  Having two ways of forming thick colonies, the Italian Arum will quickly crowd out native plants and destroy riparian habitats.

First, birds will eat and disperse the bright red berries making the potential for escape from home gardens into natural areas high.  Second, its numerous daughter tubers easily detach and spread with yard debris.  This is the major cause of new infestations of the Italian Arum.  Share this information with a gardening friend instead of sharing this plant between gardens!

Refer to https://www.nwcb.wa.gov/weeds/italian-arum or call the Lewis County Noxious Weed Control Board at 360-740-1215 for more information to learn how to identify and help manage Italian Arum.