Description

Everybody loves a beautiful garden. Gardenerslove plants that are adaptable, tough, and fast-growing. It’s evenbetter if that plant produces showy fruits that attract birds or isan annual that self seeds, so it doesn’t need to be replanted everyyear. Unfortunately, many of these plant traits desirable togardeners can also increase the likelihood that a plant jumps thegarden fence and invades natural areas.

Invasive plants threaten our environment and economy. They posean enormous threat to our native plants, animals, and ecosystems,and they cost the United States approximately $35 billion per year(www.invasivespecies.gov).

Although invasive plants are almost always not native to aregion, it is important to note that most non-native species arenot invasive. We use the following definitions.

Native (indigenous): A species that was present in NorthAmerican prior to European settlement or has arrived since throughnatural means of dispersal.

Non-native (exotic, alien, introduced): A species that wasbrought to North America by humans, either deliberately oraccidentally.

Invasive: A non-native whose introduction does or is likely tocause economic or environmental harm or harm to human health (fromFederal Executive Order 13112).

People have introduced invasive species both accidentally anddeliberately. This app focuses on plant species that are usedornamentally and have become invasive in at least part of theMidwest. Cultivars or hybrids produced from these species may ormay not be invasive. In the few published cultivar evaluationstudies, some cultivars prove to be more invasive than the parentspecies, others less or not invasive. We lack research aboutcultivar invasiveness for many of these species. When we have goodevidence about a problematic or relatively benign cultivar, we listthose specifically.

Suggested alternatives include both native species andnon-native species that currently show no signs of becominginvasive.