I would also want it to compete with the Norway maple to slow its growth ===>>> yeah ... good luck with that ... lol ... if the most invasive weed on earth ..... grass ... wont grow under a norway.. good luck with anything else ... if we are to presume that a tree is twice as large underground.. as above... how are a couple little vines going to slow it down ... regardless ... give it a try ... if you can provide enough water for the vine.. in excess of what the tree will steal ... and the vine actually can become established and thrive.. it might be a really cool affect ... i would recommend not amending the soil .... and never watering the vine alone.. bare rooting it.. and planting in only in the soil removed in digging the hole ... you might get it going.. but any amendment .. fertilizer.. or water specific.. will encourage the maple to come fill the hole you dug with feeder roots.. and in the long run.. strangle the plant .... i know this for a fact from growing some odd 1500 hosta under a myriad of trees ... maples .. among others ... are super competitors .... and .. given time.. will take everything that other plants might need ... and norway is their king ... good luck ken ps: even if you decided to increase your odds by trying to grow the vine in a 20 gallon pot.. under the tree.. on top of the native soil .... within a few years.. the roots of the tree will fill the pot.. these darn things arent even limited to mother earth .... maybe they are aliens ...

Greenthumbz, those are gorgeous pics! I've heard that there are a couple of trees that are not native to North America but are used by significant numbers of native insects. 1) Malus/Crabapples - native, hybrid, or exotic, Douglas Tallamy's book stated that the leaf chemistry is so similar that North american insects will use all species. This certainly bears true in my experience. I've got lots of crabs, a few specimens and a crazy wild thicket full of them in back,and they are bird magnets, not just for the fruits in the fall but for the nectar and insects in spring and summer. 2) Picea abies/Norway spruce - don't have any personal experience, but was told this by an ornithology student at Cornell who was doing a study on the subject

Hi, I don't think many plants compete well with the ivy. Someone here can probably comment more on that. The plants you've chosen have a rather large variety of growing requirements... V. bluebells generally take a rich woodsy soil with a fair amount of shade. V. creeper is a ground cover that I don't think will do well in pots. Elderberries get very big, sucker and like quite a bit of water and at least part sun. Green coneflowers get very big. I have huge clumps of them growing by the creek. I am not positive of their growing requirements, but they are growing wild in my yard in part sun and above average moisture. Great blue lobelia requires at least part sun and above average moisture. That might do OK in a pot. Some types of milkweed have a large taproot, so I'm not sure they will do well in pots. I'm not sure if they all have taproots, though. Blue wood aster may do OK in pots. Most types of JPW get very large. They like above average water and at least part sun, preferably full. While I think there are many natives that would do well in pots, I am not sure all those you have in mind would work well. I hope I'm not discouraging you from trying natives in pots. You may want to do a little more research on what you chose to try. Hopefully others here can offer their thoughts. I'm by no means an expert. As far as IDs, the only one I know from your pics is the one in the pink pot--a hosta. Blue Ridge Mountain Girl

I grow all of the plants that you mentioned. First of all we should define invasive. None of the plants are invasive as in detrimental to agriculture or natural habitats. You are more concerned with "aggressiveness" in the sense of a landscape or garden. All of the plants you mentioned have extensive root systems. However, if you want to remove them, you can dig the core of the roots out and missed roots will not resprout. Its the extensive root systems of these plants that make them desirable, drought resistant, disease resistant, they won't need soil amending or fertilizers etc... Little blue stem tends to spread and cannot be divided without a saw... its does widen and spread, but slowly ... The rest of the plants do widen as they grow and they will tend to fill in the space that they are given. The grass (LBS) is recommended to fill in between the flowers because without the competition from the grass the flowers tend to get top heavy, wide and fall over. The grass interplanted with the flowers helps keep them from falling over...(my observational opinion) The asters tend to reseed readily and some species are considered aggressive. It depends upon the species and your growing conditions. (This can easily be controlled by dead heading the flowers not letting the seeds hit the ground...) Some of the aslpeias spread readily too, depends upon the species and your soil conditions. Asclepias are quite lovely and make excellent landscape plants. I think they can be controlled fairly easily by snipping the seed pods before they open. If you do plant those plants, get ready for lots of butterflies. All of those plants are butterfly favorites and you will enjoy both the beauty of the flowers and butterflies.