Why is it allowed for garden centres/nurseries to sell highly invasive plants?

[marigoldflower]

I've been to reputable garden centres (mainly in London) and I've seen that they sell plants like Kalanchoe Mother of Millions or Tillansia Zerographica (air plant)

Why is this allowed?

I try to be meticulous when buying plants as I unknowingly purchased an invasive plant in the past, though thankfully I managed to get rid of it before it took hold

I've also seen the damage air plants can do to pine trees (in a whole neighbourhood) for instance, and they are virtually impossible to eradicate. They can grow on phone lines, lamp posts, etc

So I was quite shocked when I saw this

Perhaps they should come with a warning?

I think you should stop watching Little Shop of Horrors reruns

“Warning- if you buy this houseplant and then illegally take it half way around the world to a country with a completely different climate and then take it out of its pot and plant it near a telegraph pole, it might spread!”

Oh no. I have two kalanchoes in pots in my kitchen. I may have to get a jungle machete in order to make a cup of tea.
I did have a third one but it died.

I do agree about ivy. We moved into a house with ivy on a joint fence and it's and absolute nightmare. Partly our fault as I wasn't a keen gardener so it got out of hand but it's still awful. The birds love it though and it does make the garden looks nicer.

Japanese knotweed was brought over as a decorative and fast growing plant, so some caution is good thing.

I don't see kalanhoe invading the UK though. Mine barely manages to stay alive in its little pot.

Why would they need to come with a warning? Subtropical plants will only survive in a subtropical environment. Which the UK isn’t. Not sure why you’re horrified, do you not think the repeated frosts from October to April, snow & short sunlight hours in winter will be an effective enough way of preventing them from spreading in the wild?

There are stringent regulations around aquatic plants, unfortunately many sellers don't adhere to them and many buyers & gardeners are unaware of the regulations & biosecurity, leading to an awful lot of impact on native biodiversity, driven by fly-tipping, poor gardening & people 'improving' a native woodland by planting rhododendron

There should be WAY more info on biosecurity from garden centres, & WAY more responsibility from gardeners, but people won't even stop buying & selling fucking PEAT yet so what chance do we have.

Japanese knotweed is different. Although they do get warmer temperatures in Asia than we do in the UK, they also get very cold temperatures. So it would obviously be able to survive as the UK is relatively mild by comparison & we have few/no species that eat it.

@Ihaventgottimeforthis

There are stringent regulations around aquatic plants, unfortunately many sellers don't adhere to them and many buyers & gardeners are unaware of the regulations & biosecurity, leading to an awful lot of impact on native biodiversity, driven by fly-tipping, poor gardening & people 'improving' a native woodland by planting rhododendron

There should be WAY more info on biosecurity from garden centres, & WAY more responsibility from gardeners, but people won't even stop buying & selling fucking PEAT yet so what chance do we have.

Agreeing with this very hard.

It's legal to sell deadly nightshade in the UK and the seeds can easily be bought online. Now THAT'S crazy in my opinion

As a side note, the early collectors for the Oxford Botanic Gardens have a lot to answer for: ragwort and laurel for starters, off the top of my head.

Having seen the way rhododendrons are taking over at High Lodge in Thetford Forest, it’s being left completely unmanaged. That would be on my To Ban list.
People walking through commenting on how beautiful it all was, made me feel a little ragey!

poor gardening & people 'improving' a native woodland by planting rhododendron hmm

. I’ll step down from my contributor role on the gardening board. FGS rhododendron varieties are all different. There is only one which is problematic and quite frankly it takes years and years to get to a stage where it could become even vaguely destructive. I live on on an estate which was cleared and actually that’s worse for the biodiversity of the woodland. The few I’ve transplanted from neighbouring land and the one area of our land where they were left have grown about two foot in eight years. I’m not sure that’s causing any harm to anyone.

It's bamboo here on our 60s housing estate. Everywhere! 2 varieties, one small and one massive. The big stuff has taken over 5 houses hedging and back gardens, and is on the march to ours. I waiting for it with a flamethrower.
Our front garden is infested with a small variety which I thought I'd eradicated but it's everywhere. The soil is heavy clay and a really steep hill so it's a nightmare to try to dig out and pulling on the suckers rips your hands off.
I get a bit weepy weepy sometimes when I see dozens of little shoots appearing in a new patch
Not sure how far I'd have to dig down to install yet another barrier - nothing has worked so far & it just keeps on moving. Our elderly neighbours said they've been constantly digging it out for over 30 years.
In the right circumstances it can look lovely but when I see newly planted invasive stuff in people's gardens I feel for their future sanity. No amount of ground barriers will stop that stuff!

Bamboo is a thug.

It's always recommended on the "what do I plant" threads here though.

We learnt the hard way about mint taking over our herb garden!

We keep it in its own planter now. But the one little supermarket mint plant we bought last year now fills a half whiskey barrel planter...

Again though, it isn’t all bamboo. Clumping varieties will be fine

There’s a house in my town that has not sold for years because of the Japanese knotweed in the garden. And another house that has bamboo in its garden - it backs onto a nature reserve and the bamboo has spread onto the reserve too. I do understand the point OP is making - some are uneducated about what they’re buying but there’s little you can do about it I suppose

There is a solution for this.

Someone needs to start a Board of Invasive plants and appoint me as chairperson.

I manage to kill off even mint in my garden. Columbines, invasive? No, not in my garden, lady's mantel taking over the paths? Definitely not.

I agree op that plants that are invasive in the UK should come with a warning.

I'd nominate the fucking hydrangea in my front garden I've been trying to kill off for nearly a decade now.

@PickAChew

Ivy is an arsehole. Completely impossible to remove without an inferno.

Of the highest order

With some of the plants which proved invasive, it's easy to be wise after the event. The early plant collectors and importers probably didn't realise that some of their rare plants would romp away here with no natural controls. Himalayan balsam is a prime example - it's quite pretty and bees do like it at the back end when there's not too much else in abundance. But it spreads along waterways and forms monocultures swamping out natives.

Op acknowledged that she'd made a mistake about those plants being invasive soon after her initial post.