Planting right with PlantRight
by Alex Stubblefield
Project Manager at PlantRight
You may know that invasive plants cause extensive damage to California’s wildlife, agriculture, water, and fire safety, but did you know that horticulture has historically been the top pathway of introduction for invasive plants?
PlantRight is a voluntary, science-based, and collaborative program working to stop the sale of invasive horticultural plants in ways that are good for business and the environment. PlantRight unites leaders from California's nursery and landscape industries, conservation, academia, and government to find common ground and cost-effective solutions. It is currently housed at Plant California Alliance.
To determine which horticultural plants are invasive, PlantRight convenes diverse partners to use the best available science to reach consensus. (Pictured: Holly Forbes, (UC Berkeley Botanic Garden) (right), from left, John Randall (The Nature Conservancy), Joshua Kress and Dean Kelch (California Dept. of Food & Agriculture), John Keller (Monrovia Nursery), and Angel Guerzon (California Native Plant Society).) PlantRight’s list is then publicized throughout the trade to build awareness. For each invasive plant, PlantRight also identifies a suite of other plants that can be used as safe horticultural alternatives. (For instance, Calamagrostis foliosa in place of invasive green fountain grass, Pennisetum setaceum.)
To help keep the list current and to monitor progress, PlantRight conducts an annual nursery survey that provides critical and statistically sound information on what invasive plants are being sold. Each year, we work with more than 150 volunteers (mostly UC Master Gardeners) to collect information from over 300 retail nursery locations throughout the state.
Our annual surveys have shown a significant decline in the number of nurseries our listed plants are found in each year. PlantRight’s program can be directly related to the decline in the sales of invasive plants at big box stores (like Home Depot and Lowe’s) in California. To find a list of PlantRight retail partners, visit our online directory on PlantRight.org.
Our website also features profiles on each of the plants that PlantRight has listed as a priority, watch list, or retired invasive, or a suggested non-invasive alternative. A plant is retired from our priority list when it has been found at less than 1% of nurseries for three consecutive years.
PlantRight also offers a continuing education course for which California Certified Nursery Professionals (CCN Pros) can receive one unit of continuing education credit. (Although the course is tailored towards nursery professionals, it is open to anyone who is interested.) In this way, those in the trade are being educated on the issue so that nursery introductions continue to be reduced.
In the future, the goal is preventing new plants from being introduced through horticulture that become invasive. PlantRight has worked with universities and others to develop a predictive risk assessment questionnaire that scores the likelihood of a given plant becoming invasive in California. This helps plant breeders avoid investing time and resources in bringing risky plants to market.
From landscape architects to home gardeners, everybody involved with plants can become part of the solution to California’s invasive plant problem by knowing how to PlantRight.
