A cautionary article that should spur us all to plant natives.

Wow crazy. Is this the only place they are invasive?

Exactly as GG says. T fortunei grows well here but it is not invasive. Nor are hundreds of other non natives which enhance our plantings. We'd have very dull gardens if we stuck only to our very depleted number of natives. But, of course, there are invasives here, such as Rhododendron ponticum, and we do need to be careful.

In Southern California we have the climate that allows two invasive species of palms to flourish.

“The California Invasive Plant Council includes two palms on the California invasive species list: the Mexican fan palm (Washingtonia robusta) and the Canary Island date palm (Phoenix canariensis).”

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2024/07/13/garden-mastery-palms-in-the-landscape/

Okay, so they ban them from sales in Switzerland, but do they also implement a program to eradicate them? If they don't, I can't imagine how banning them from future sales will do a whole heck of a lot.

“The California Invasive Plant Council includes two palms on the California invasive species list: the Mexican fan palm (Washingtonia robusta) and the Canary Island date palm (Phoenix canariensis).”

I think Canary Islands are my very favorite of all palms.

Well I must say groves of Trachycarpus in the Alps would be an interesting thing, but once the groves get established it would be too late of course...

Maybe you could argue the Mexican palm though, as an expansion from the historical range. They were probably pushed south during colder times and are only now able to take a ride back north with gardeners and reunite with California fan palms. Again, it's hard to put the genie back in the bottle.

That's my take on the Washingtonia robusta situation, too, katob.

I think some people love the power trip of getting to declare something invasive. It's from the same coastal warm Mediterranean climate, just on the other side of an arbitrary political border.

I've been planning to dredge up some pics I took of the wild Trachys of Lago Maggiore. One of these days. I've said this before, if you can afford to travel just one place in the world to see gardens, that's still what I recommend. (Sorry UK, but I'll never forget the gloomy weather the first time I saw gardens there. In June! A week of drizzle in June!) Second, in the USA, is the Bay Area although SoCal a close second. Seeing rainbow gums at the Huntington is one of those plant encounters I'll never forget.

T. fortunei is quite prolific here in central North Carolina but I would hardly call it invasive. Unfortunately, the definition of invasive for plants is really not invasive in my opinion. Here, T. fortunei will come up like grass below the tree and if you were to spread seed in a wooded environment, it would come up here and there. But finding it spreading out on it’s own by bird or otherwise has not happened in any way. Certainly you don’t find random palms coming up. Sabal minor is native only a few counties away from me and it’s far more prolific than T. fortunei.