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Prince Charles urges gardeners to ask these three crucial questions before buying plants
The Prince of Wales has urged gardeners to question garden centres about the plants they are buying amid fears the UK will ‘end up with a wasteland’.
Climate change, increased travel and movement of plants around the world has escalated the risk of new pests and diseases spreading to the UK, which can devastate the UK landscape and our gardens too.
'The health of our plants is an integral part of the beauty and enjoyment of our gardens,’ said Gardeners’ World presenter Monty Don, 'but right across the globe, new pests and diseases are being discovered all the time, and this is a real threat to the biosecurity of us here in the UK.’
Prince Charles has been concerned about this for a long time, and in the interview with presenter Adam Frost from the gardens of his private residence at Highgrove, near Tetbury in Gloucestershire, Charles spoke about these ongoing threats to our native plants and trees.
Charles said we're now 'faced by a multitude of threats of every kind of disease', which left Adam to note that there is currently a Defra (Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs) list of 1000 pests and diseases, with 100 new ones being added every year.
'The biggest fear is that we end up with a wasteland here,' revealed Charles. 'Having seen more and more of these pests, particularly from the Far East, coming here, there's all these caterpillars and strange things, all with extraordinary names...one thing after another.'
For example, pests and diseases have the potential to devastate the oak population, which would impact the nation's wellbeing, economy, environment and the species that depend on them.
'People love the ancient oaks in this country,' said Charles, 'and there are magical remnants of some of these forests.'
Charles said despite being a nation of gardeners, the seriousness of the problem has yet to be addressed urgently. He called on gardeners to quiz nurseries and garden centres with these three questions before buying plants:
1. Where do they come from?
2. Have they been properly checked or quarantined?
3. Have you got a biosecurity policy because of the risks we're facing with all these pests and diseases?
'The difficulty I think is nurseries really are the ones that need to act quicker in terms of quarantining,' Charles explained. 'I only get my trees now from a nursery which does proper quarantining, but it’s one of a minority, which is madness if you think about it because we should be taking a very urgent emergency approach to this. We haven't got any time to waste.'
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