RISCC Research to Practice Series: Using Garden Plants to Advance Climate Adaptation
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Introduced in the late 1800s through the ornamental plant trade, Burning Bush (Euonymus alatus, native to Eastern Asia), has since escaped cultivation and is now invasive in the understory of many forests in the Northeast, choking out native species. Nonnative species are 20 times more likely to become invasive than are native North American plants.
Gardening with native plants that are suited to both current and future climates supports native wildlife, increases climate resilience, and reduces the risk of introducing future invasive species. In an era of climate change, however, this practice has become more challenging because plant hardiness zones are shifting as temperatures warm while the growing range for many native plants is not keeping pace. Fortunately, planting native and near-native species from nearby ecologically similar regions can help plants expand their ranges in response to warming conditions. As a result, this “climate smart” gardening can support the future biodiversity and resilience of gardens as well as nearby ecosystems. To facilitate this approach, a research team at the Northeast Regional Invasive Species and Climate Change (RISCC) Management Network has provided updated and expanded state lists of “climate-smart”, commercially available native and near-native plants that are expected to grow in the Northeast with continued climate change. Their work has been published as a new Research to Practice Paper, "Climate-Smart Gardening 2.0: Plants to Promote Climate Adaptation”.
This synthesis builds on an earlier Research to Practice Paper, "Climate-Smart Gardening", which notes that roughly 80% of ornamental plants sold at nurseries and retail stores are non-native. Because non-native plants are 40 times more likely to become invasive than native garden plants, this statistic has enormous ecological and economic implications. In addition to undermining or destroying native ecosystems, invasive plants cost the U.S. approximately $20 billion per year to manage and control. To help address these impacts , researchers at the RISCC management network identified several common plantings that have become invasive and should be removed. These include: burning bush, multiflora rose, Japanese barberry, and Japanese honeysuckle.
