Non‐native ornamental plants provide less support for ecosystems as compared to their native counterparts, serve as vectors for harmful pests, and can become invasive. To reduce ecological harm, researchers and practitioners have called for increased supply of native ornamental plants. However, it is unclear whether commercial plant nurseries are embracing calls to expand native plant offerings. Here, we analyzed inventories from 339 nurseries in the Northeast and Mid‐Atlantic US. We found 3322 species sold across 256 conventional and 83 native specialty nurseries. Conventional nurseries sold primarily non‐native species, including 283 plants recognized as invasive in the US. Native specialty nurseries offered 1176 species native to Eastern Forest ecoregions, 31% of which were unavailable at conventional nurseries. Conventional nurseries were more than twice as likely to sell native cultivars (74.6% of native taxa offerings) than native specialty nurseries (31.8%). Our synthesis supports the replacement of problematic non‐native species with native alternatives, improving ecosystem health in human‐dominated areas.
Fertakos et al. (Thu,) studied this question.