Challenges with Cultivars

When the native plant movement began in the 1970s, one of its goals was to educate the public about landscaping and gardening in an ecologically sustainable way. A half-century later, the buy-in has been more than anyone bargained for.

The growing number of native plant enthusiasts demanded innovations in native flora available at local nurseries. In response, the horticulture industry provided an increasing number of cultivated forms of native plants designed to enhance desirable traits, such as attractiveness to pollinators, aesthetic value, disease resistance, and consistent performance. Nursery growers and breeders in the United States and abroad, in both the native plant community and the ornamental sector, had cultivated these new plants from ones selected in the wild and hybrids created in laboratories. Unfortunately, both cultivated wild selections and hybrids were often lumped under one generic label: “native cultivar” or, simply, “cultivar.” Confusion ensued, controversy erupted about ecological value, and the topic boiled into one of the plant world’s hottest debates: Do cultivars provide the same benefits to wildlife as the species from which they’re derived, or are they just ornamentals with no environmental value? Even worse, could native plant cultivars cause environmental harm?

The horticulture community is divided