Climate change drives ornamental invasion

Climate change could mean that garden plants become a problem on the other side of the fence

Research at the University of Konstanz in southern Germany by Emily Haeuser and colleagues, published in the Journal of Ecology, examined three categories of plants: recently introduced garden plants, natives and ‘alien residents’ – plants that have escaped from gardens and have since naturalised. The researchers ran experiments in greenhouses to see how plants in these three categories reacted in simulated warmer environments.

They found that the most recent introductions could be worse off in the simulated climate, with flowering reduced. However, the two other categories did even worse, with the native plants doing worst of all. Newly introduced plants were therefore found to be effectively more competitive in a warmer, drier climate than the plants already at home in southern Germany – which suggests that a changing climate is likely to help exotic plants to escape from gardens and become invasive in the wider landscape.

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Find out more at https://www.botany.one/2018/11/a-changing-climate-can-help-exotic-plants-escape-gardens/amp/

Meanwhile, a University of Reading PhD student, Tomos Jones, would like UK gardeners’ help in identifying the invasive plants of the future. Gardeners can be the first to observe the warning signs, he says, and his research will help to identify which plants could become invasive in the wider environment due to climate change. He’d like you to complete a two-minute survey, naming up to three ornamental plants which you have noticed taking over in your garden.

Go to https://bit.ly/2oU2rXJ to take part.

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Photo: Campanula (bellflower)

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Steve Ott

Steve Ott is editor of Kitchen Garden magazine and started his career as a professional grower, producing everything from cut flowers to vegetables. He has been growing fruit and veg all his life and spends most of his spare time in his garden in the East Midlands. He loves to experiment with crops and varieties he has never grown before and when he isn’t gardening is to be found out in the countryside bird watching and walking his dog Ted.