Update: My Buddleia davidii has since been shovel pruned. I kept getting severe ifestations of Two Spotted Spider Mites. I tried to control them with a jet of water, but that didn't work. I tried to control them with foliar insecticide, but that didn't work either. The second year was more of the same, but the spider mites began to spread to other plants in my yard. That was when I shovel pruned the butterfly bushes. The spider mites are gone from my yard now and I'm still not sure why the Buddleia davidii in my yard had such a problem.

UPDATE: We had the old messy tree removed a week ago for $850.00. We kept a few logs to use on our hillside for steps in a couple places. Basically small terraces held in by rebar. We bought two large shade trees from Moon Valley Nursery that have non invasive root systems, non-toxic leaves, and are guaranteed to not be messy! One is a Raywood Ash. It turns red in autumn. The other is a MALE ginkgo biloba. It turns yellow in autumn. They both are drought friendly, grow fast and were in 36 gallon crates. We also bought a queen palm to replace one that blew over and a much desired Cape Blue Plumbago shrub. Editing to state that 2 trees in 36 gallon crates, 1 palm in a 20 gallon crate, 1 shrub in a 5 gallon, including delivery and free planting cost us $2,300.00. The shade trees are already about 18' tall, and expected to grow 3-5 feet per year. We got to choose the trees we wanted. They tagged them for delivery. They plant them all for free on Oct 30th. We are hoping the looming El Nino will give them a good start this season.

Non-invasive elephant ear is an oxymoron, but the darker varieties don't seem to spread as rapidly as the species plants. You'll just have some to share.

I'm looking to add some passion vines to my garden, but I need them to be non-invasive: I live in Zone 10 & Caerulea runs rampant throughout the neighborhood. A few years ago (elsewhere) I had an Incense that I adored but that my neighbors were less fond of--it went several houses down! So far, my list of potentials is: Passiflora Anastasia Passiflora Aragorn Passiflora sanguinolenta Maybe Passiflora Alata Does anyone have any experience with these and/or additional suggestions? I'm having a hard time finding information on how the different vines spread--big is fine, though a variety of size would be nice. Will eat the neighbors' and/or their yards is not ok (I like these people)