Garden tip: Why it’s important to remove invasive plants

One of the principles of Earth-friendly gardening promoted by Master Gardeners is to remove invasive plants that crowd out our native species.

The California Invasive Plant Council (Cal-IPC) was established in 1992 to address invasive plants as an important threat to our environment.

Cal-IPC created the California Invasive Plant Inventory, a list of invasive plants graded by their ecological impact. For example, French broom, Genista monspessulana, is listed as a most invasive wildland pest.

They have also developed CalWeedMapper for mapping invasive plants and following projects to control them. Reducing invasive plants in our gardens and commercial nurseries is also part of their mission.

PlantRight has a list of partners with retail nurseries that don’t sell invasive plants. Let’s protect our native plants and the environment.

— Katie Martin, UC Marin master gardener