Tuesday, August 16, 2005

Just Eat It...

...That's pretty much what some nurseries are going to have to do as invasive plants that they sell are placed on "banned" lists. As reported by the Concord Monitor, New Hampshire nurseries are already having a hard time getting rid of their Norway maple (Acer platanoides) stock, as the public gets educated about what will be illegal to sell or propagate by 2007. Even nurseries in neighboring states are hesitating to take the plants, worried that their own states will implement similar bans.

It would have been good for the state to implement an invasives "buyback" program to help out the nurseries, but that seems unlikely as a state worker estimates that at least half of them are still buying or actively cultivating the soon-to-be-banned plants (also on the prohibited list: burning bush (Euonymus alatus) and Japanese barberry (Berberis thunbergii).)! Let's hope we don't see these three species selling at rock bottom prices next summer.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

We have similar problem here in the UK. A few years ago the government introduced legislation in an attempt to control the spread of Japanese knotweed. However, in doing so, they have made it even more difficult (and, as a result, much more expensive) to dispose of the plant. A lot of land-owners are just not bothering!

Jennifer Forman Orth said...

Yes - I had never heard of the "deep burial" option for invasive plants till I read what they were doing in England.

Anonymous said...

Well, that's some good news. I get depressed when I traverse the aisles of the local nuseries here in SW Florida. EGADS. Especially the smaller nurseries... Natives are hard to come by.

And Florida is just so EASY for invasives to populate.

The few native plants I see in regular landscaping are totally over-used. I guess they're the only options out there for people who do larger landscaping projects (condos, office complexes and what-not). The thing is, on new construction, a large percentage of new plantings have to be native varieties. That's cool - but how much silver buttonwood and red-tipped cocoplum can there be in the world?

Sheesh.

They beat invasives, anyways.