Ecosourcing

What is eco-sourcing?

Ecosourcing is the propagation of native plants from a representative sample of the local wild population. This is important where plants are intended to naturally regenerate.

Why eco-source?

Ecosourcing restores natural populations and avoids introducing plants from other areas. This helps to maintain the distinctive local character of an area. Ecosourcing also aims to propagate from enough individuals to ensure the new planted population truly represents the range of characteristics found in the original population.
This is important to avoid inbreeding and to help the species cope with change and to survive in a range of environments.
 

Ecosourcing ensures the survival of this natural variation which is an important component of the natural world.

Ecosourcing is a practise designed to avoid loss of biodiversity. It may help to consider ecosourcing as mimicking natural dispersal and ecological restoration as contributing to the restoration of natural dispersal processes.

Why choose Forest Flora?

At Forest Flora, all our plants are ecosourced. On our cataloque we record the locality the seed was collected as well as the number of individual plants from which seed is taken, to ensure the preservation of natural diversity.
 
Another benefit from ecosourcing has been the opportunity to explore natural areas for seed collecting, where we have observed which plants grow where, and followed the growth of individual plants and the natural succession of species. 

This has become an invaluable aid for us in designing the restoration of natural areas.