Ask Mr. Smarty Plants

At the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, we are committed to the care, protection and propagation of plants native not only to North America but to the area in which the plant is being grown. Pinus engelmannii (Apache pine) is native to a small area in the most southern portions of Arizona and New Mexico and from there extends its territory into Mexico. It normally grows at an elevation of 5000 to 8200 ft. on rocky ridges and sides of mountains. That doesn's sound much like The Netherlands, does it? Even if you could obtain a seed, we would be very surprised if it would germinate and produce a tree. We do not like to recommend plants being grown out of their natural ranges both because, as we said, they might not grow at all and because they might grow too well and become invasive. One of the reasons we deal only with plants native to where they are being grown is that often alien plants become invasive plants, pushing out plants native to that area and damaging the habitat. There are pines, like the Scots Pine, native to The Netherlands but, since it is not also native to North America, we have no information on it in our Native Plant Database.