Plants that need to be avoided and that Plantlife believes should be banned from sale:-

Azolla filiculoides - Water fern
Cabomba caroliniana - Fanwort
Cotoneaster microphyllus
Cotoneaster simonsii
Crassula helmsii - Australian swamp stonecrop
Eichhornia crassipes - Water hyacinth
Elodea candensis
Elodea nuttallii
Fallopia japonica - Japanese knotweed
Gunnera tinctoria - Giant rhubarb
Heracleum mantegazzianum - Giant hogweed
Hyacinthoides hispanica - Spanish bluebell
Hyacinthoides hispanica x H. non-scripta - Garden or hybrid bluebell
Hydrocotyle ranunculoides - Floating pennywort
Lagarosiphon major - Curly waterweed
Myriophyllum aquaticum - Parrots feather
Pistia stratiotes - Water lettuce
Robinia pseudoacacia - False acacia
Rhododendron ponticum - Rhododendron
Rhododendron ponticum x catawbiense
Rhododendron ponticum x maximum
Salvinia molesta - Giant salvinia

What can you do?:-

Do not buy any of the invasive species listed. These species all cause significant damage to our native habitats and shade out native plants.

Alert store managers to the problems these species cause and encourage them not to stock them.

Compost excess garden plant material properly and never dump garden plants in the countryside

Don't release any garden or aquarium plants (native or non-native) into the wild

Buy native species

Be careful not to send or receive potentially harmful plants through the mail

Don't bring plants, fruits, soil, into the country from abroad

Clean boats and boating equipment before transporting them from one water body to another to avoid spreading aquatic invasive species

Spread the word, and educate yourself and others about the problem of non-native invasive species

Get involved - join Plantlife and become a Flora Guardian. We need volunteers to remove invasives

Prepared by Tony Whitbread, Chief Executive Sussex Wildlife Trust.