UC Master Gardeners Help Defend California Gardens From Invasive Species, One Nursery Center At A Time.

Working in concert with the California Nursery industry and PlantRight, the UCCE Master Gardeners participated in an on the ground nursery survey to track the retail market for “garden related” invasive plants in California. 

This is the 2^nd year in which more than 140 Master Gardener (MG) volunteers conducted the survey of over 200 randomly selected retail nurseries.  The survey asks the MGs to go through assigned nurseries to evaluate the presence or absence of any of the PlantRight targeted 19 invasive species.  By understanding which invasive species were still being sold through the retail markets, PlantRight can develop better strategies to target their outreach and educational efforts directed at the nursery industry and make planting recommendations for alternatives to those plants considered invasive.  

The results were interesting in that the data showed that there were really only a very few nurseries selling invasive species and of those, most were located in the South Coast region.  About 70% of the surveyed nurseries were not selling any of the invasive on PlantRights list.  Of those that did sell them, 66% only sold one species and that typically was Periwinkle first, followed by Pampas grass and green fountain grass.  Another surprising finding was that the nurseries that did sell invasive species were generally either small, independent retailers or large retailers, but not big Box Store Retailers.  This is surprising in that one tends to think of larger corporate entities to not pay as much attention to local issues. 

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