Not in my backyard?

This is a good article about “allelopathy”, a form of chemical warfare among common plants in the botanical kingdom.

NIMBY plants contain chemicals toxic to other plants. These are released to maim or kill interlopers by interfering with photosynthesis or root development. Some synthetic herbicides were actually modeled after some of these natural NIMBY plant chemicals.

It sounds exotic, but you’d be familiar with some of the plants that use this tactic to keep other plants from getting big enough to compete for light and nutrition. Black walnut, eucaplyptus, african marigolds, sunflowers, sumac, tobacco, fennel… they all play dirty to keep other plants out of the backyard.