Straight Native Plants Vs. “Nativars”

The environment greatly benefits when we gardeners replace exotic plants in their gardens with native plant. Exotics are plants from other parts of the world that are often of little value to no value to local wildlife and which can become invasive, out-competing native plants in protected areas and lowering the value of these places for wildlife, genetic diversity, and human enjoyment.

So, we head to the garden center to get plants native to our region—called straight species or wild type—and we often find the native plant section filled with patented cultivars, sometimes called “nativars.” These are plants that have been selected and/or altered by breeders for different bloom color, number of petals, fertility, or other characteristics. These plants are cloned and patented, then marketed and sold under their patented names. When properly labeled, these names (such as “Hello Yellow” for a butterfly milkweed cultivar) will be in single quotation marks after the species name.

While research on cultivars of natives vs. wild type is still sparse, here are a few things to consider:

• Research has determined that the alteration of green foliage to red on some shrubs makes them unpalatable to species that need them to reproduce
• Color and other petal differences may be confusing to pollinators
• Nectar from altered plants may not provide pollinators with the same nutritional value as nectar from the wild types with which they evolved
• Genetic variability among plants of a species—absent from cultivars/nativars—enables a planting of that species to survive environmental stressors and extremes like heat, disease and drought
• Butterfly caterpillars require specific plants to compete their cycle and become butterflies. Research has not yet determined the effect of altered plants on them, other than the above-mentioned research on foliage color change
• Most breeding birds require the protein of caterpillars and other insects to feed and raise their broods to adulthood—even most seed-eating birds
• Seed-eating birds need seeds! Plants that are bred to be sterile and produce no seed have no benefit to these birds

Before we understood the importance of habitat integrity, gardeners often sought characteristics like “insect-free” and seedless. We now know more about the complexity of nature and the fact that we humans do not always realize the consequences of our powers to change our environment. Certainly, food plants developed by breeders since the dawn of agriculture have aided the human species. But when it comes to choosing plants to enjoy in our gardens, and the joy of sharing them with other creatures, perhaps nature is the best engineer.