Extension Spotlight

Did you know who coined the term "Nativar"?

Allan Armitage, author of Armitage's Garden Perennials, horticulturist and professor at Georgia University coined the term "nativar" "to show customers that the industry was offering what they wanted: garden plants developed from documented native sources, known in the scientific community as genotypes" from What's in a Nativar? by Carol Becker. A nativar is a cultivated variety of a native plant that has some ecological value in the environment. Nativars can be a native plant that is a genetic variant found in nature. That plant is then selected and propagated to retain a particular or unique aspect. Nativars can also be obtained through the process of artificial selection in which plant breeders grow plants with desirable characteristics and eliminate those with less desirable characteristics according to Wildones.org.

According to Ryan McEnaney, Bailey Nurseries’ Communications and Public Relations Specialist, "Nativars allow us to retain the ecological benefits of native species while making them adaptable and accessible for a modern landscape. Whether that means a more compact size, cleaner foliage, better color or a tidier appearance, nativars solve problems that can arise with the genotype.” At your nurseries and greenhouses, you may be finding more compact sizes of favorite native plants with bigger blooms and better color along with more disease resistance.

So, the next question is to plant or not to plant? According to Mary Phillips of the National Wildlife Federation, it is good to plant 80 percent native plants and 20 percent cultivars or nativars so that specialist feeders still get what they need to survive. Let us look at Echinacea purpurea ‘White Swan’ for a moment. It is a nativar because it is a cultivated variety of the native species with a white flower. Another new nativar of Echinacea is ‘Snow Cone’ a red flowering coneflower with a compact size of up to two and a half feet for the front of a perennial border. There are many new nativars to choose to add to your perennial areas.

With some nativars, they will feed the indigenous pollinators while being resistant to fungal issues and thus, nativars have this added benefit of protecting themselves from fungus, disease and insects. The cultivated plants have larger, more color-saturated corollas which are more enticing to insects and hummingbirds according to Catherine Winters of Morningchores.com in her article "What are Nativars and Are They Beneficial or Detrimental?"

The key to a healthy landscape is the same thing the doctor might say to you about moderation and balance. Apply that in the landscape. These bring about diversity. If you have all lilacs and daylilies, if a disease or an insect comes on your property and attacks the daylilies, then what you have left? Diversity of many kinds of plants keeps your landscape healthy.