In the 1984 movie Ghostbusters, there’s a scene where Gozer the Gozerian tells the Ghostbustors to, “choose your destroyer.” This is actually what happens every time someone who is uninformed about ecology, botany or horticulture goes to a typical nursery or garden box store to buy plants for their garden. It turns out that the horticultural industry is the primary pathway for invasive plant introductions and is literally sowing the seeds of our ecological destruction. It’s even been quantified – 55% of observed invasions are within 21 miles of a nursery (about the distance someone is willing to drive).
Imagine, for a second, if the industry responsible for this destruction instead disseminated local ecotype, native keystone, and rare or uncommon plants to increase biodiversity and local abundance of native plants, insects, birds, reptiles, amphibians and mammals. This scenario is entirely plausible – and native plant nurseries are already doing it. While the native plant business is still small, it’s a huge potential market growth sector as the public becomes better informed about the ecological hazards of exotic species. Many thanks to those of you who are doing the good work already! The silver lining to this paper is that it pinpoints not only the role nurseries could play to turn the tide in plant invasions, but also how we might focus our weed wrangling activities in locations within 21 miles of nurseries.