Gardeners seek agapanthus reprieve

Members of the country's $500 million-a-year garden industry will ask the Government to try to stop popular plants such as agapanthus and palm trees from being banned as weed pests.

The Auckland Regional Council is seeking public views on adding 51 plants to the list of those that cannot legally be sold, including agapanthus, bangalow and phoenix palms and english ivy.

Biosecurity New Zealand is also looking at a national sale ban on agapanthus in 2007.

But concern at the way plants become named as pests and then banned was expressed at a meeting in Auckland of members of the Nursery and Garden Industry Association, Palm & Cycad Society, Landscape Industry Association, International Plant Propagators Society and the Horticulture Institute.

Garden association president Lance Bills said Biosecurity Minister Jim Anderton would be asked to ensure the process was based on conclusive scientific evidence and took into account the plants' recreational value.

"If indeed they are a problem, plant management is a better answer," said Mr Bills.