Kalamazoo, MI Invasive Plant Rules: Prohibited Species (2026)

Table 6.2-6 organizes banned species by category. Prohibited trees include Norway maple, tree-of-heaven, silktree, Russian olive, black locust, Siberian elm, Callery pear, princess tree, and black alder. Prohibited shrubs include Japanese and common barberry, autumn olive, glossy and common buckthorn, several bush honeysuckles (Amur, Morrow, Tatarian, showy fly), multiflora rose, and Japanese meadowsweet. Prohibited vines include Asian and swallow-wort varieties, English ivy, Japanese honeysuckle, mile-a-minute weed, and kudzu. Prohibited grasses cover reed canary grass, common reed, and Japanese stiltgrass, while prohibited herbs include garlic mustard, spotted knapweed, Canada and bull thistle, leafy spurge, purple loosestrife, and Japanese and giant knotweed.

The ban is parcel-wide within the NFP Overlay District, meaning it is not limited to the vegetated buffer or setback area; none of these species may be planted anywhere on a covered parcel. The provision doubles as a backstop to the native-planting rule in the same subsection: even where the NFP Review Board approves a nonnative substitute for optional landscaping, that substitute still cannot come from the prohibited list. Existing invasive plants already growing on a site being redeveloped must also be removed under the related existing-vegetation standard in § 50-6.2(J)(4)(c). Community Planning and Economic Development checks plant lists against Table 6.2-6 during site plan review before landscaping is approved.