Natives vs. Cultivars
When to choose what — and why it matters.
A native plant feeds the local insect community in ways a cultivar usually cannot. A cultivar gives you a precise color, a smaller habit, or a longer bloom. Both are tools. The question is which problem you're solving.
There is no moral high ground in this debate, just trade-offs worth naming. A straight-species native — Echinacea purpurea, say, grown from seed — supports a wide range of native insects and is most likely to interbreed with wild populations productively.
A 'nativar' — a named cultivar of a native species, like Echinacea 'Magnus' — is usually selected for a single visible trait: color, size, bloom time, sterility. The trade-off is often reduced nectar, pollen, or genetic diversity.
For a designer trying to maintain a precise composition over many years, cultivars are sometimes the right tool. For a meadow conversion or a habitat-focused planting, straight species or local-seed-sourced natives are nearly always better.
A reasonable compromise for most home gardens: use straight species and local-source natives for the ecological backbone (60–80% of the plant count), and cultivars where you need a specific visual outcome (the rest).