It is heavily distributed through garden centres, nurseries and landscape contractors due to the plant's ability to spread via small fleshy berries and its tolerance of extreme conditions.

It is now being identified as a weed in many high-value ecosystems throughout the Forster area where bush regeneration projects are occurring, and also being found as an escapee during private property inspections on rural, urban and peri-urban properties.

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MidCoast Council is currently working with various private, government and non-government organisation stakeholders to reduce the amount of weedy species being broadly grown and traded through retail centres in NSW.

Public land managers are pleading with the general public to reconsider any existing or planned plantings of sweet viburnum, and replace them instead with suitable native or non-weedy ornamentals.

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