It’s gardening season. Time to grow your know-how about climate-friendly native plants | 24CA News

As the climate warms and spring flowers begin to bloom, it will quickly be prime season to go to a backyard centre to get new crops to your house. 

Increasing efforts to protect biodiversity and decrease the impacts of local weather change are pushing many horticulture fanatics to develop native plant species of their yards. 

But in line with conservation activist Brendon Samuels, not all crops are labelled precisely.

Some retailers in Ontario promote crops labelled as “native species,” although they are not being grown within the province, stated Samuels, a biology PhD candidate at Western University in London, Ont.

“We are in the middle of a biodiversity crisis, so we’re at risk of losing a huge number of species within our lifetime due to a variety of factors, including habitat loss.

“People who’re conscious and need to plant native species are discovering it tough to know if the crops they’re placing into the bottom are literally a part of native biodiversity, or in the event that they’re introducing overseas genetic materials introduced in from the U.S.”

Samuels is calling for provincewide regulations that would require plants to have standardized labels telling customers where seeds are sourced from, whether they’ve been imported from elsewhere and if they are invasive species.

LISTEN | Conservation activist Brendon Samuels speaks about choosing the right plant species:

“It’s tough for individuals to find out at factors of sale if this was really grown and sourced in Ontario, or if it was imported from the U.S., the place there’s higher manufacturing capability and related species,” he said. 

‘There’s trust in the label’

Will Heeman, owner of Heeman’s Greenhouse in London believes plants get mislabelled because suppliers ship to a variety of different regions in Ontario. So, although a plant might be native to one part of the province, it may not apply to other areas.

“There’s belief within the label, however we do a second layer of due diligence when sourcing crops as a result of individuals typically inform us ‘We Googled it and thought it was native, so we put it on the tag.’ Whether it is native to us or not, they may do components of their gross sales to areas the place it’s.” 

This puts the onus on retailers and consumers to ensure they are planting something sourced as native to Ontario, Heeman said.

“Having correct signage on issues to have the ability to talk the advantages and options is all the time going to be useful to individuals,” Heeman said, adding his greenhouse tries to make it simpler for people in lieu of standardized label expectations.

Planting native species is important for Canada to meet its biodiversity targets, Samuels added.

In 2021, the federal government increased its nature protection ambition to address the crises of biodiversity loss and climate change. Their target is to protect 25 per cent of lands and oceans by 2025, with the goal of 30 per cent by 2030. 

A lot of Heeman’s clients don’t specifically ask about where seeds are coming from, but his goal is to make native plants more accessible and compelling because of the environmental need for them, he said.

How can you be better informed?

Samuels recommends that gardeners do their own research before heading to a greenhouse and not just rely on what’s said on plants tags. Some resources that can help are: 

• USDA Plants Database — where the public can look up species of plants and view maps showing where the species are native and introduced
• Grow Me Instead guides for selecting species that are appropriate for planting in Southern or Northern Ontario 
• The 2022 Auditor General of Ontario report on administration of invasive species

To make an knowledgeable shopping for determination, Samuels additionally suggests asking employees at backyard centres to elucidate the place crops are grown and sourced.