We’re pleased to announce that Plant California Alliance will be PlantRight’s new home and lead its future growth.
With major support from the state’s horticultural industry, including plant growers and retailers, Sustainable Conservation launched PlantRight over a decade ago to stop the sale of invasive plants in California and prevent new introductions.
Before we launched PlantRight, the same invasives that escape from landscaping, multiply quickly and wreak havoc on open spaces, could be purchased at many nurseries and garden centers statewide.
“From the partner side and the nursery industry side, this has been an incredibly successful program because we’ve been able to accomplish great things without regulation and I think it really shows the willingness from the nursery industry to do the right thing, said Chris Zanobini, Executive Director, Plant California Alliance, from a recent interview in Garden Center magazine. “If you look at how many plants have been retired from the list, I think we have accomplished some incredible things and doing it without regulations is huge because nurseries are already heavily regulated in California.”
Plant California Alliance is the recent formation of our longtime allies at the California Association of Nurseries and Garden Centers (CANGC) and Nursery Growers Association of California – groups with an incredible wealth of horticultural wisdom, networking influence, and decades of experience educating the industry and public about how to avoid using invasive plants. There couldn’t be a better partner for ensuring the program continues to thrive.
“In working with CANGC over the last 15 years, first on our “Don’t Plant a Pest” brochures and then on PlantRight efforts, we have greatly valued their active partnership in encouraging environmentally friendly practices while supporting businesses in the green industry. Their creative ideas are essential for reaching the wide-ranging nursery community about the invasive plant challenge. Their leadership is essential to a thriving horticultural trade that supports California’s natural heritage.” — Doug Johnson, Executive Director of the California Invasive Plant Council
Plant California Alliance will continue advancing current PlantRight efforts, including overseeing an annual survey of California nurseries to track the presence of invasive plants, updating PlantRight’s list of priority invasive plants and non-invasive alternatives, growing relationships with existing and prospective nursery partners, and managing PlantRight.org’s educational content.
While there are far too many contributors to the PlantRight effort to recognize individually, we wanted to take this opportunity to recognize those whose especially significant contributions have gotten us to where we are:
- Steering Committee and Plant List Committee members
- Retail Nursery Partners
- UC Master Gardener Program statewide staff, County Coordinators and UC Master Gardeners around the state
- All of our past nursery survey volunteers
- Program supporters
- Landscape designers, gardeners, and allies who are planting right and encouraging others to do the same.