By Bryan Buckalew, February 22, 2010, KUOW News, Washington

English Ivy and Butterfly bush are noxious, invasive weeds. Now, it's illegal to buy or sell them in Oregon. But in Washington, that's still permitted.

Sarah Reichard knows a lot about invasive weeds. She studies them at the University of Washington's Center for Urban Horticulture. English Ivy, she says, can be seen everywhere: on campus, in parks, in people's yards.

Reichard: "English Ivy is a fast growing plant. It is very durable. It grows under all kinds of different conditions. It's very easy to propagate and therefore very inexpensive for nurseries to produce and sell and people to buy."

The problem is, it takes over and smothers native plants. That's why it was recently banned in Oregon.

Reichard and other horticulturists would like to see the same happen in Washington. State law prohibits noxious weeds, but — here's where it gets confusing — not the ones that are already widespread, like English Ivy and Butterfly bush.

State officials say banning their sale won't do any good. Washington's quarantine law doesn't help either. It's meant to keep invasive plants out of areas where they don't already exist. That's according to Tom Wessel. He's a program manager for the state Department of Agriculture.

Wessel: "We consider a quarantined species as a species that doesn't occur here, or if it does occur, it's not widely distributed and it's being officially controlled. If it's widely distributed, it's generally too late."

Wessel says it doesn't make sense to use the agency's limited resources fighting plants that are already well established.

But Bill Brookreson disagrees. He's President of the Pacific Northwest Plant Council and former Deputy Ag[riculture] Director for Washington.

Brookreson: "It makes no sense from a standpoint of public policy to allow its continued sale. It's like having a flooding sink and bailing it out but never turning the water off."

Brookreson says as long as nurseries are allowed to sell noxious weeds, they'll continue to spread. He'd like to see Washington follow Oregon's lead and ban the plants.