Night-blooming jasmine, a fragrant plant that is a favorite of gardeners around Hawaii, has a secret.
It’s highly invasive.
Left unchecked, the plant becomes a thicket, choking out native understory plants and cutting off sunlight from koa seedlings trying to become trees. It can grow from cuttings. Birds like to eat its seeds and will spread the plant around the island in their droppings, foiling the attempts of even the most careful gardener to keep their jasmine on their property.
The plant scored 17 points on the Hawaii-Pacific Weed Risk Assessment tool. Plants with scores of more than 6 are considered high risk for becoming invasive.
But it is still possible — easy, even — to find night-blooming jasmine in nurseries, because there are no regulations against selling or importing it.
“It sometimes takes a few generations before you even notice that a plant was invasive,” said Franny Kinslow Brewer, communications director for the Big Island Invasive Species Committee.
The Hawaii Invasive Species Council, a collaboration of state organizations including the Department of Agriculture, Health, Land and Natural Resources and Business, Economic Development and Tourism, does not have an official definition for invasive species, although it is in the process of creating formal guidelines.
“You’re going to assume ‘Oh, they’re here, they’re for sale, they must be fine,’” said Molly Murphy, Plant Pono specialist for the BIISC.
Plant Pono, established in 2011 by Hawaii’s Coordinating Group on Alien Pest Species, seeks to fill the nursery education gap between what is technically allowed and what is ultimately harmful for Hawaiian biodiversity.
“Basically, we ask them to get proven invasive horticultural species out of the supply chain, to stop selling them,” Murphy said. “Part of our process is also changing the hearts and minds of consumers in Hawaii, so that they understand that when they go to a garden store and buy plants, those could invade the forest.”
Though Plant Pono is a statewide initiative, Brewer said the Big Island and Kauai have embraced the cause moreso than other islands.
The first nursery endorsements on Hawaii Island were awarded in early 2015 to Kona businesses Kalaoa Gardens, Southern Turf, and Nursery Solutions.
Late last month, Plant Pono landed its biggest coup yet when Wal-Mart agreed to phase out sales of night-blooming jasmine as well as medinilla, another plant in the early stages of becoming invasive, at all of its Hawaii stores, not just those on the Big Island.
That will help places like Maui, which like Ka‘u has struggled with night-blooming jasmine gaining a foothold outside of the garden world.
To work with Wal-Mart, Murphy made a connection through her cousin, who works for the company’s corporate headquarters in Arkansas, showing management the data from the Weed Assessment Tool.
“My impression from the back and forth (emails) is that they never would have started selling them (the plants) if they had any idea,” Murphy said. “They were surprisingly responsive.”
She said that in addition to phasing out the two specific plants, Wal-Mart also plans to work towards full Plant Pono endorsement, a process that includes promoting native species and ensuring that pests like little fire ants and coqui frogs are not spread via sales.
The coqui frog criteria was a challenge when Plant Pono was trying to establish its endorsement protocol: Original guidelines required that the entire nursery be coqui frog free.
“Especially in East Hawaii — that was impossible,” Brewer said. The guidelines have since been altered so that only sales tables need to be kept free of the tiny amphibians.
“If you have them around the back of your nursery, we’re not going to ding you for that,” Brewer said. “It’s more about what you’re selling.”
Murphy hopes that more big-box stores will be inspired to follow in Wal-Mart’s footsteps once it becomes Plant Pono endorsed.
Eventually, there may not be a need for Plant Pono at all. The state is currently working on a biosecurity plan that would create more regulations for imported plants, but there is no timetable for its completion.
“Biosecurity is something that we’re probably about ten years behind everyone else on,” Brewer said, referring to places such as New Zealand, which also have considerable invasive species challenges and have taken “very strong steps to protect their borders from this stuff.”
“If we had stronger security on what was being imported,we would be out of business, and that would be fantastic,” Murphy said. “Or we could just go back to fighting miconia.”
For more information about Plant Pono and a full list of endorsed nurseries, visit www.plantpono.org or www.biisc.org/plant-pono/.
View the Hawaii-Pacific Weed Risk Assessment tool at sites.google.com/site/weedriskassessment/home
Email Ivy Ashe at iashe@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
