Herbaceous ornamental garden escapers – a path from the urban environment to the forest

Over the past 25 years, the diversity of herbaceous perennial plants used in ornamental horticulture in Latvia has increased significantly. As a result of the direct introduction of various taxa into botanical gardens, nurseries, and through the activities of gardeners on private properties, different types of garden and park plants have begun to escape and naturalize ex-situ in local habitats outside their original settings. Records of these new "escapers" are being documented in two main ways: traditionally, through herbarium collections maintained by academic institutions, and more recently, through online platforms that engage the general public in observing and recording flora and fauna. In Latvia, this platform is Dabas Dati (https://dabasdati.lv). The intensity of plant observation reporting on this platform is remarkably high — in 2024 alone, 54,706 plant observations were submitted