The plant is 5ft tall or higher. It's flowers are very fragrant and butterflies and bees seem to love it. And the blooms turn pinkish as they age.

Hello Mary Kay,

Thank you for reaching out to the EMG Helpline to inquire about your mystery plant - I love a good mystery!  

After examining your photos, and assuming I looked at the leaves that belong to this flowering plant, I suspect you could have something in the aster family. Narrowing it down a bit, it could possibly be a type of valerian. There is the common valerian as well as the marsh valerian found in Vermont. Here are some plant profiles on these two plants:

Valeriana officinalis (common valerian): Go Botany (nativeplanttrust.org)

Valeriana uliginosa (marsh valerian): Go Botany (nativeplanttrust.org)

You have a lot of greenery in your photos! if you can share a close up of the leaves (to make sure I am looking at the right one) as well as a close up of the flowers, I can continue researching the question. 

Hello Mary Kay, 

Thank you for the close-up photo of the flowers and for confirming that I was looking at the right leaves in the photo. I do believe that this could be common valerian. Here's a helpful factsheet:  PEI Invasive Species Council - Common Valerian. 

A few key pieces of information:

Grows 1.5 - 5' tall
Flowers are white or pale pink, fragrant and very sweet smelling
Blooms June - August
Spreads vigorously by self-seeding and aerial stolons

Back to your original questions - if this plant identification is correct, it will spread quickly as you have observed. The fact sheet copied above has some great tips for manual control, which focus on removal prior to setting seed and removing all plant rhizomes. Valerian is used in herbal medicine, but should not be used without the consultation of a physician before use. 

On Fri, Jun 21, 2024 at 1:56 PM, Ask Extension

<<personal data hidden>> wrote: