The Debate Around Nativars
I am a big proponent of not letting perfect be the enemy of good.
A perfect native plant landscape would be a diverse matrix of local ecotype straight species periodically managed through fire and large herbivore disturbance. That’s a tough needle to thread in the average urban or suburban yard. So, we sometimes need a little bit of balance to make our native gardens work.
Nativars- cultivated varieties of native plants- shouldn’t be written off as all problematic or just used indiscriminately.
They need to be evaluated on a species-by-species basis. Some nativars are natural mutations that were discovered in the wild by plant lovers who then started propagating them to share and celebrate. Anyone can breed plants like this. It’s an ancient practice and one that shouldn’t belong to only the big nursery trade.
Many nativars are shorter and more compact versions of their wild species. These are my favorites to use as a designer. They make otherwise enormous plants more appropriate for the scale of a home landscape. If it’s the choice between sticking with boxwoods because they fit well in a foundation bed or replacing them with a dwarf cultivar of a native shrub, the correct choice feels obvious to me. Same goes for dwarf cultivars of very large perennials.
I also love all the many beebalm cultivars with improved disease resistance that are now available. They have taken an absolutely beautiful (but difficult to design with) perennial and made it much longer lasting and healthier looking. Garden phlox, as well, must be super easy to breed because there are dozens of gorgeous cultivars. Some of them, like the famous Jeanna, have been observed to be even more popular with pollinators than the straight species.
There are definitely nativars that I believe should be used with caution.
My feelings on hybrids in native plant gardens are kind of mixed. It’s frustrating how little transparency there can be around the parentage of some nativars. I’ve been burned by that more than once. And changing flower shape or color can negatively impact pollinator’s ability to use some cultivars for food. There’s just a lot we still don’t know about the inadvertent impacts of plant breeding on things like nectar and pollen content.
Beloved entomologist, Doug Tallamy, has proposed an 80/20 rule, believing that if even just 80% of your landscape is native plants, you are doing your part to benefit wildlife. I like to treat nativars as part of that other 20%. We are allowed to grow plants for ourselves in our gardens. And if a dwarf Joe Pye weed or a pink yarrow or even a double-petaled hydrangea is what makes our heart happy, we can find a place for it.
