Public green spaces are complementary areas in urban centres, designed to create recreational spaces for public use and cultivated-natural landscapes. There are many public green spaces on York University's Keele campus such as the woodland lots, the green roof near the Ross building, the Passy garden, the Maloca community garden and the HNES Native Species Garden. The Native Species Garden is a naturalization project founded in 2005, in front of the Health, Nursing and Environmental Studies building. The project led by Dr. Gerda Wekerle and various members of the Faculty of Environmental Studies and land management staff to propagate native species as there are many exotic species on campus. While the goal is pure and beneficial to the campus ecology, the consequences are lackluster. The garden invites xenophobic principles, formulates stereotypes and cultivates misinformation about exotic species. The purpose of this essay is to discuss the different images of exotic species and the integration of these species into public green spaces on campus. Exotic, sometimes invasive, species are organisms displaced due to human disturbance or geological and meteorological events, often displacing species from their habitat. However, the word "invasive" is attached to exotic plants as a negative construct without considering the advantages or disadvantages of the plants to humans and the environment. The history of exotic species is interpreted as a militaristic metaphor and Larson (2008) states: “We have made enemies of invasive species to justify their control and subjugation” (p 16). An example is garlic mustard, a herbaceous species native to Europe and some parts of Asia; used mainly as a spice. According to the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (2012), Garlic M...... middle of paper ......raphical Review 94.2 (2004): 178-198. Guest of EBSCO. Network. November 15, 2013.Larson, Brendan. "Friend, foe, wonder, danger." Alternative magazines. 34.1 (2008): 14-17. Guest of EBSCO. Network. November 14, 2013.Schetter, Timothy A., Timothy L. Walters, and Karen V. Root. “A multiscale spatial analysis of native and exotic plant species richness within a mixed-disturbance oak savanna landscape.” Environmental Management 52.3 (2013): 581-584. Guest of EBSCO. Network. November 16, 2013.Stinson, Kristina, Sylvan Kaufman, Luke Durbin, and Frank Lowenstein. “Impacts of garlic mustard invasion on a forest understory community.” Northeastern Naturalist 14.1 (2007): 73-88. Guest of EBSCO. Network. 13 November 2013. "Terrestrial invasive species". Biodiversity. Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, September 4, 2013. Web. November 13. 2013. .