h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

You should also choose to purchase plants native to your part of the world/country for your garden. Many exotic species may look splendid in your garden but can easily escape into nature and deplete local species by out competing native plants and changing the habitats and food supplies of native insects, birds, and animals. Such plants include bamboo, multiflora rose, and Chinese wisteria. Your town or county planning department can probably give you a list of plants considered to be invasive and may also have a list of native garden plants best suited to the conditions of your region.

Australia's rabbit problem all over again! Japanese knotweed's one such culprit.

I don't see what the craze about bamboo is all about, to be honest. It's all about fashion more than anything else. Mind you, after you change your mind about that and rip it up and want a 'Meditaranen' garden or something, you'll still have bamboo bursting up from bits of root you didn't remove!

I once read a garden advice column where a homeowner asked what she could do to stop the bamboo coming up through the lawn and cracking the driveway. The columnish suggest she burn down the house.
Purple loosetrife is a major concern in New Jersey where it's choking out native wetlands species, yet is found in most residential landscapes.

I've got two bamboos - one as a 'hedge' between me and the cow next door, and one because it makes lovely rustly noises when it's windy.

This is a handy link if you are in the UK and are looking for native plants - http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/life/plants-fungi/postcode-plants/

I've got most of my native plants after seeing them on here.

Purple loosetrife grows like a weed all over New England too, but in the UK I've seen it being advocated as a lovely little flower.

It's banned in many states in the north-east US. When I worked there, we used to get customers who saw some which had started to grow in a crevice or somewhere and wanted to buy it. They just couldn't understand that they couldn't - I got lots of fun stress-relieving rows over that one!

One of the difficult aspects of invasive plants is the damage done. Onece the platns establish themselves and spread, it's nearly impossible to get rid of them all.