Creeping Bellflower

Why it’s harmful

Creeping bellflower is often mistaken for a charming cottage-garden flower — which is how it escaped gardens and became a stubborn invader.

• It spreads two ways at once: by thousands of seeds and by a network of deep, white, creeping roots and tubers that send up new plants all around the parent.
• The roots are brittle, so digging often snaps them and every fragment left behind grows into a new plant.
• It out-competes both native plants and garden perennials, forming dense colonies.
• It can resemble — and crowd out — our delicate native harebell.

How to ID it

• Lower leaves: heart-shaped with toothed edges, on long stalks.
• Upper leaves: narrower and stalkless, alternating up the stem.
• Flowers: a tall spike, 2–3 feet, of nodding, purple, bell-shaped flowers lined up mostly along one side of the stem, blooming in summer.
• Roots: thick, white, fleshy tubers plus thin spreading rhizomes — visible when you dig.

Look-alike: Our native harebell (Campanula rotundifolia) is smaller and daintier, with flowers scattered (not crowded onto one side) and thread-like stems. It’s worth protecting.

📸 3 photos to help you recognize it in different settings and seasons.Click any photo to enlarge and browse.

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How to remove it

There’s no quick fix — this plant is a marathon, not a sprint.

1. Dig out the entire root system, going deep to lift the white tubers and rhizomes. Loosen the soil widely first so roots come out whole rather than snapping.
2. Remove every fragment you can find — leftover root pieces are the #1 reason it comes back.
3. Cut off flower spikes before they set seed to stop new seedlings while you work on the roots.
4. Smother stubborn patches with cardboard and a thick layer of mulch over a full season or two to exhaust the roots.
5. Spot-treat regrowth with herbicide where digging isn’t practical.
6. Never compost the roots — bag and trash them.
7. Expect to repeat this for two to three years before a patch is truly gone.