NSFW pictures of worm poop (sorry, but also please feel my pain)
In fall 2024 I planted my first native plant (after gardening with roses and other flowers for about 8 years). In 2025 I killed more sections of grass and expanded my native planting areas, and even started the long slow process of removing invasives (like liriope, privet, nandina, and ivy) which had come with the property. I’m so proud of everything I have learned about native plants and better yard/garden practices. And I have big plans/high hopes for our property as far as more planting, more invasive removal, neighborhood outreach, etc.
But now I have invasive jumping worms taking over my yard and I’m so discouraged. I’ve already seen a decrease in soil quality and I’m worried my relatively young natives will suffer this year. Plus it’s gross to have mounds of poop everywhere. Mostly I want to whine to other people who understand how tragic and frustrating this is because there’s nothing to be done!
My probably not unique story: In mid-summer in 2025 I started noticing weird little piles of mud or poop in a small section of my garden. I didn’t give it much thought given all of the different wildlife we have in the area. After a while I googled it and found out it was invasive jumping worms, which I had never even heard of up until that moment! I tried for a while to dig them up but gave up on that attempt pretty quickly. I had a tarp down for months killing some grass, and when I removed it in October, there were mounds of the poop everywhere under the tarp. Pic 3 shows the area where the tarp was. Now a few months later, the mounds were basically everywhere! Our yard isn’t tiny either so the worm population is obviously booming.
Some plant tax in picture 4. One of my newly planted areas in spring 2025. It certainly doesn’t look so neat anymore!
by ovckc
5 Comments
The only thing that seems to work is Tea Tree Meal but it will also kill all other worms as well. It is fairly effective though
That really sucks. Do they kill plants directly or just ruin the soil which in turn kills the plants?
Edit to say I just read about them. What a bummer. 🖕jumping worms!
I’m sorry. I can relate to you. I’m probably going to be in a similar situation soon. I started over after moving from florida to Virginia and had no idea I had to worry about this. I’m pretty sure i got one from at least one native nursery and didnt realize what was going on til months later. and then started bare rooting absolutely everything, and found another from a nursery that is so strict about selling their plants to people that I literally had to interview with them for an hour to be able to buy them. and they sold me jumping worms and didnt really seem to care when I told them (“oh no! we’ll look into it!”). if nurseries like that are causing jumping worm issues then I feel like it’s inevitable for me to end up with them anyway, unless I grow everything from seed. but it’s already too late.
A year or two after jumping worms first appeared in my yard (Northern VA DC suburbs a few yrs back) the large gang of robins I have all winter figured out how to eat them — basically grab them and whip them against the ground until stunned — and now the worms are endemic but infrequent. Don’t know if this is true elsewhere?
Unfortunately, there’s not really anything you can do about them at scale. I personally wouldn’t let myself worry about it too much. Do the best you can with what you have and don’t let it ruin your gardening experience. Just gotta pick your battles, and be ok with what you can’t control. Let the birds eat them and don’t give them a second thought beyond that.
It’s also important to remember that the earth worms you’re used to seeing in the garden are also not native to North America. The most common species in the Americas such as red wigglers and night crawlers are also native to Eurasia.
And this is coming from someone who owns a native plant nursery and has acres of land (for those wondering, our nursery only sells potted plants that never touch ground soil in our possession).