Plants may be invasive in some regions of California, and not invasive in others. This map shows you the California regions used by our list. The plants listed below are invasive in one or more regions as shown on this map.
How are these regions determined?
The regions shown on this map are based on the Sunset Climate Zones, which are determined by an area’s rainfall, temperature range, wind, humidity, and length of growing season.
These are the Sunset Climate Zones which correspond with each region:
Sierra and Coastal Mountains: Sunset Zones 1-3
Central Valley: Sunset Zones 7-9
Desert: Sunset Zones 10-13
North and Central Coast: Sunset Zones 14-17
South Coast: Sunset Zones 18-24
Printable List
The list is also available in PDF format for printing.
Mouse over or touch a photo to see a recommended alternative plant. Below each plant are links to more information about that plant, including suggestions for beautiful, non-invasive replacements. If you aren’t looking for an alternative for a specific invasive plant, see this page that compiles all of our suggested non-invasive alternatives.
SMSierra & Coastal Mountains CVCentral Valley DTDesert NCNorth & Central Coast SCSouth Coast
Plants to Watch
Many plants we consider for the list of invasive list meet some but not all of the invasive list criteria. These are the plants we refer to as “Plants to Watch.” We provide more details about these plants, why they aren’t on the plant list, and if there are places in California where this plant should be avoided.
To keep the plant list manageable and actionable, we “retire” invasive plants when our nursery survey shows they were found at less than 1% of stores for three consecutive years.
