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Plants that Threaten Environment

Invasive plants from gardens...

... or from ponds

Plant Lovers Want Nurseries To Stop Selling Invasive Plants that Threaten Environment

June 29, 2007

TOLEDO, Ohio -- Bamboo-like plants that grow taller than adults have choked out native plants in a marsh that once teemed with life at Maumee Bay State Park along Lake Erie.
Wild flowers at the park have disappeared. Migrating birds have gone elsewhere. The parkland has changed so much that naturalist Dana Bollin no longer leads tours past the common reed grass towering along Maumee Bay's boardwalk. "I hate to spend an hour talking about invasive plants," she said.

Environmental groups hope to slow the spread of decorative but invasive plants by persuading nurseries to stop selling them and instead promote native species. One of them announced in March it is removing two invasive trees -- Norway maple and Lombardy poplar -- from its stores.

In California, a partnership of nursery owners and environmental leaders is working on a campaign called "Plant Right" that will help gardeners find native plants suited for their regions.

Only a small percentage of plants sold in nurseries are nonnative troublemakers that crowd out other plants and rob animals of their food sources. However, environmental groups cite the ease with which these invasive plants can end up in the hands of gardeners or landscapers. Some, like Norway maples and Japanese barberry, are big sellers.

Environmentalists hope getting information to consumers will lead them to embrace native plants.
Meijer stores in the U.S.Midwest now have brochures in their garden departments promoting native plants and tags on plants and trees that are recommended by The Nature Conservancy.
A few states, including Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, have banned the sale of dozens of invasive plants. New Hampshire's ban on Norway maples, Japanese barberry and burning bush took effect this year.
Over the last three years, nursery owners, landscape architects and environmental leaders in California have developed a list of about 20 invasive plants that they want to stop.
It will be up to nursery and store owners to decide whether they will follow the recommendations.
Nursery owners and retailers are getting involved, in part, because they want to act before other states attempt to ban plants. They recognize how fast these problem plants have spread and how much is being spent to control them.
The federal government spent $631 million dealing with invasive plants and animals in 2000, according to a U.S. General Accounting Office report.

The Nature Conservancy's work with the horticulture industry in Florida led some nurseries to stop selling about 50 invasive plants at its home improvement stores in the state.

A big key in getting stores to stop selling the plants is showing them just how destructive they have become, said Kristina Serbesoff-King, (The Nature Conservancy in Florida). "They are willing to listen if it's based on sound science," Serbesoff-King said.

— By John Seewer, Associated Press

On the Net:

California Invasive Plant Council: http://www.cal-ipc.org/

Nature Conservancy: http://www.nature.org/initiatives/invasivespecies/features/

What are invasive plants? The answer in this site:www.usna.usda.gov/Gardens/invasives.html

see case Invasive Plants

Do you live in the US and do you like to help solving this problem and working in the nature?
Go to
www.fws.gov/invasives/volunteersTrainingModule/index.html

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