Project Overview

Reports

Commodities

• Additional Plants: conifers, flowers, herbs, native plants, ornamentals, trees

• Community and Urban Pest Management: public health

• Ecosystem: Ecosystem

• Human Health: workers, residents, applicators

• Natural Areas: forestry (conifer), forestry (hardwood), wildlife

• Pollinators: habitat

Target Pests

Practices

• Pest Management: decision support system, forecasting, monitoring/scouting, prevention, weed ecology

• Natural Resources/Environment: biodiversity, indicators

• Sustainable Communities: quality of life

Public Gardens as Sentinels against Invasive Plant (PGSIP) is an innovative invasive species prevention initiative that involves monitoring potentially invasive plant taxa, and determining thresholds for action, which are key elements of Integrated Pest Management. Funding from North Central Integrated Pest Management Center (NCIPMC) supported the establishment of the PGSIP Working Group since 2018, which collaborates with botanic gardens and arboreta (gardens) on identifying potentially invasive plants to help prevent their introduction into the horticulture trade and naturalizing in the landscape. Project participants from the garden sector are leading this unique effort by monitoring, recording, and sharing information about ornamental plant taxa within their plant collections that are escaping cultivation. The plants that are escaping are often obscure species which are not widely available within the nursery trade and not generally recognized as invasive. However, escape from their planting sites is an indicator that the species could prove to be invasive if they were to be developed for the commercial market and introduced into the broader landscape. The Working Group is in the process of evaluating the data collected by public gardens and sharing actionable PGSIP data with stakeholders via PGSIP “alerts”. Alerts are designed to bring awareness and promote voluntary action around plant taxa that have been observed to be problematic within public gardens. Stakeholders can utilize information from alerts to keep potentially invasive plants out of propagation and trade and thereby inhibit their introduction and spread. While we are pleased with the data we have collected so far, we recognize a need to increase the number of participating gardens and the population of data in the database that can be used to inform these alerts. In 2023 we will bolster garden participation by continuing to utilize proven outreach methods, by hosting a Data Sharing Workshop, and by meeting with database representatives to evaluate methods for streamlining the data collection process. Combined, these efforts will increase the number of gardens enrolled in PGSIP, the population of data in the PGSIP database, and the ability to report actionable data to stakeholders via PGSIP alerts.

 In 2023, the Working Group proposes to increase PGSIP enrollment from 12 to 27 gardens. We are committed to achieving this goal within a diverse, equitable, and inclusive environment for our current and prospective Working Group members and gardens (see DEIA plan). The Working Group will continue hosting webinars, distributing e-newsletters, and  provide individualized support to engaged gardens in the North Central region. We will also boost enrollment of new public gardens through a Data Sharing Workshop at the American Public Gardens Association (APGA) conference. This project will provide stipends to 15 gardens to support their attendance at this workshop where Working Group members will assist gardens by reviewing their plant lists, helping them rank taxa, and guide them through the data entry process. Also in 2023, the Working Group will meet with collections management software program representatives from Brahms, IRISbg, and BG-BASE to evaluate options for adding or modifying data entry fields in both desktop and mobile garden collection software to match fields needed for PGSIP participation. The goal is to make it easier for gardens to collect PGSIP data in the course of their standard data collection processes. If we can improve the efficiency and ease of PGSIP data collection we can reduce the lag time between when a garden becomes interested in PGSIP and when they share their data. It will also make it easier for gardens to update taxa data in subsequent years. The PGSIP Working Group is finalizing a communication platform to share information gleaned from garden data on plants that are escaping cultivation and are potentially invasive. These “PGSIP alerts'' will be an important step in realizing an important goal of PGSIP: to prevent potentially invasive plants from becoming invasive. We will issue our first PGSIP alert in 2023 with our target audience being invasive species councils, plant propagators, landscape architects, nursery industry representatives, and public gardens.