A lily (probably an old Easter lily) and wild violets.

Do you have a nearby water source like a creek or river? The tree types,native bamboo,mayapples and liana type vines are pretty typical of damp areas or riverine forest.

I'd leave the mayapples alone, wouldn't transplant the pretty purple (wild violets)flowers and let the kids eat the wild strawberries in summer. Teeny berries. If they're encroaching on a flower bed, just rip them out. Probably take a year or two to finally get rid of them.
The bamboo is getting a ground water source and if you chop it down it will re-grow. I think it only dies from lack of water and sunlight.
Someone will come along and explain how to kill off the vines if that's what you want to do.

OK, I can offer my take on most of them - the first 2 photos look like lilies of some kind, just starting up. I would suggest you cover them this weekend if you are also in the range of the forecast for frost - lily leaders are very frost tender, and you might lose the flowers for later in the summer. Not knowing the variety, I can't say if they will be 3' or 6' at flowering time.

The vines look like honeysuckle, and should be pulled and cut where ever possible. They are hard to eradicate. While I try to be organic, I would make an exception for them - with kids and a puppy, you may not want to take my first thought, which is to take a yogurt container, put a little Round-Up in it, trim the ends of a vine, cut a hole in the lid and stuff the cut end through the hole and into the liquid, letting it sit for a few days, so the herbicide gets to the roots. The other choice is to cut the vines and carefully paint the ends with Round-Up.

The purple flower is a wild violet - while they can be considered weeds in flower beds because they spread happily, and have large clumps of leaves in the summer, they are pretty - you can leave them or not. The yellow one is called Indian strawberry, or false strawberry. It can be a pernicious weed in flower beds, and can overtake lawns. It spreads into large mats, by means of runners. While it makes berries, they aren't edible - not toxic, just tasteless. WHile I HAVE seen it sold in catalogues as a groundcover, I don't recommend it, but if it is in the woods, and you don't mind it...

The green stuff on the trees is moss or lichen, and is harmless.

And the bamboo type thing, I think is a grass, somewhat wild, and for me, hard to get rid of, if you were so minded. I would try Round-Up again, if you want to remove it.

I can't speak for sure about the large, lobed-leaf wild flower, I don't have my wild flower book handy. But they do look like May apple, and all parts are poisonous.

That could be the native river cane that you have.

As for the ligustrum married to the fence, I'd cut it flush with the top of the fence and put brush be gone on the cut area. As it tries to sprout back over the next few months, just keep breaking off any sprouts. Hopefully it will run out of energy and die eventually. Good luck!

Here is a link that might be useful: Arundinaria gigantea

that was definitely mayapples and leave them be. if you don't want them, have nc native plant society come out & get them. they're a nice native. i'd never heard they were poisonous; in fact, up north we ate the 'apples'- they taste like sour grapes, or jelly was made of them. better to teach your kids not to eat them. the sooner they learn not to eat everything, the more you will be able to relax, and they are plenty old enough to learn that and be trusted. i'd keep the puppy away from them til he outgrows the 'chomp on everything' stage- at least with dogs it's shorter than with people! most dogs don't seem too inclined to eat much greenery anyhow.

it looks like river cane to me, too. if so, it's a native bamboo, and hard to eradicate. you could try round up or mow it consistently. it likes moist areas, so if it dries out, it may go away.

Thanks for all the help.
Yes, there is a small creek bordering us on one side - it empties into a larger creek that borders us in the back. Both are usually dry but when we get rain the water flows through for a day or two. The smaller creek was clogged with sticks, leaves and other debris causing water to overflow and run across the back of the lot. We've cleaned the creek bed and the water doesn't overflow anymore.

After looking at the 'bamboo' closely it turns out to be some kind of grass.

So we're going to get a truckload of roundup, brush b gone and ant killer - wish me luck and thanks again for all your help

If the cane is actually grass, it could well be japanese stilt grass. A terrible invasive. Be cautious that what you use for herbicide is short lived since you're near a water area.

I THINK the proper herbicide to use near water is Rodeo, and I THINK it may be restricted to licensed applicators only. Really read the label on Round-Up, as I think it can be toxic to fish and invertebrates living in water and should not be used close to water.

According to the Southern Living Garden Book, May Apple, Podophyllum peltatum, is edible, but can be a powerful laxative. So I was WRONG. I guess I confused it with something else, but can't imagine what it would have been.... SO, they are a desirable wild flower, and one of the early signs of spring. I think they are ephemeral, and the leaves die down in the summer, but may be wrong there, too.

I don't think that is japanese stilt grass - mine is not even up yet in the one place I still have the infernal stuff.

From the picture, it looks like very young river cane plants or a relative. You might want to look around to see if they are other, older populations nearby.

And you might also want to look at the description of Switch Cane, another relative. It's probably not the recently discovered Hill cane, Arundinaria appalachiana, because that one drops it's leaves in the fall.

Here is a link that might be useful: Arundinaria tecta

The bamboo-y looking grass-y thing looks like a weed growing in my pastures. I know the stuff I have never grows much taller, and it spreads. I had thought that river cane got tall, but may be wrong, again. Repeated digging, cutting or R-U applications are needed to get rid of this, if it's the same thing.

dibbit, yes the leaves of mayapple do die down in summer.
I thought that cane was just ordinary switch cane but she described it as grass. I know..the stilt grass in my forest edge isn't up yet either and I wish it would sleep and die.
I didn't know there were so many different types of cane growing in the wild. I think we have all of them.

dibbit, i'm glad you looked up about the mayapples! here i was, thinking i'd ingested something horribly toxic as a kid. (sort of like the folks who grew up eating fiddle heads, only to discover in the past few yrs one of the main types is pretty carcinogenic). we never ate many of them- they are pretty sour, like sourweed/grass (oxalis), so i never discovered the laxative part. lol. but they are good. wouldn't be surprised if the foliage is poisonous, though. they have pretty white flowers in april, too. and yes, they do go dormant pretty quickly. mine are usually gone by june. rather than rounding them up, if you really don't want to live with them, please consider looking up ncnps. someone will be happy to come and get them. i think they look like fairy parasols.

i still think the 'grass' is river cane or switch cane. it needs really ideal conditions to get big, and i often see it growing at only a couple feet high. it gets taller in the woods near creeks than in the sun or an open area. they are in the grass family, which is why it may appear as grass. if the stems are woody, though, i'd lay money it's one of the arundinarias. japanese stilt grass isn't up yet, and it doesn't get woody stems anyhow. if you mowed it off repeatedly, eventually the roots would starve and stop trying to grow the canes. probably take quite a while, though- boos are pernicious.

May apples aren't poisonous--as they said. I had tons of them in my yard in wisconsin. I thought they were pretty. The roots are medicinal if you learn the proper use. The fruit is edible--but you probably won't find much if there are dear around.

I like the look of the leaves. As summer comes on they will eventually die back--but not for quite a while--mine, in Wisconsin in shade used to last almost all summer. The older the plant the bigger the leaves will get--also they get bigger if the soil is richer. They make a nice ground cover for a shady area and if I were you I would encourage them, but also contain them to where you want them. They aren't hard to get rid of in areas you don't want them. They look pretty with other woodland plants in a naturalized setting or even in tidy beds. Mary t