If you are considering nativars to support pollinators, the best to consider are those that are open pollinated (reproduction is not by cloning), such as Asclepias tuberosa Hello Yellow.

Choosing plants for our gardens involves so many decisions.

We've heard that pollinators are in trouble. The numbers of introduced honeybees (Apis melliflora) have been decreasing for years. Our native pollinators, including bumblebees and mason bees, are on the decline.

Butterflies are in trouble. Butterflies need host plants on which to lay eggs and feed their caterpillars. Since butterflies and their hosts frequently evolved together, most do not adapt to using new plants as hosts when their original habitat is disrupted.

We want to help. We decide to plant natives.

Then someone tells us that most of the plants labeled native at the big box stores are actually “nativars.” What is a nativar? Should I plant it in my garden?

Let's start with definitions.

In North America, a “native” plant is one accepted as being present in its current form at the time Europeans moved into the area.

“Straight species” and “wild-type” have the same meaning; they refer to plants that have not been modified through selective breeding, hybridization or crossbreeding and are found in their native habitats.A “cultivar” is a plant bred by horticulturists though cloning or hybridization with the goals of enhancing an aesthetic quality or encouraging disease resistance and maintaining that change through propagation.A “nativar” can be a hybrid, the product of two or more native plants intentionally crossed to create desirable traits, or it could be the clone of one particularly desirable wild-type.Desirable traits may include color of the flower or leaves, flower or plant size, or disease resistance. While nativars are the same species as wild-types, they may represent only a fraction of the natural diversity of the straight species.This diminished genetic diversity causes concern about the high use of nativars as it may weaken the population of the nativar and make it more vulnerable to one specific pest or disease.Another question is whether the nativars attract as many pollinators as the wild-type; are they as good for the ecosystem?At Mt. Cuba Center, botanical garden in northern Delaware, researchers have been experimenting with native plants and nativars developed from those same native plants.Parts of the studies focused on Monarda didyma and Monarda fistulosa; both native to Butler County. You may know these plants as Oswego tea, bee balm or wild bergamot.Two of the selections tested in Mt. Cuba's trial gardens were a naturally occurring form of M. fistulosa called Claire Grace and an M. didyma nativar called Jacob Cline.Both nativars performed extremely well with Claire Grace attracting more than 130 visits by butterflies and moths in its three weeks of bloom.

Hummingbirds visited Jacob Cline over 270 times during its flowering. Both also proved to have a high level of disease resistance.Doug Tallamy, author of “Bringing Nature Home: How You can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants” has partnered with Mt. Cuba Center to study cultivars of woody plants to determine if they are as attractive to insects as the straight species trees and shrubs.Nativars provide hope in the areas of disease resistance for two once-common trees. Princeton, a cultivar of American elm (Ulmus americana) has proved to be just as attractive to insects as the original and seems to resist the Dutch elm disease that decimated the original population. There is a similar positive outlook for bringing back American chestnuts (Castanea dentata) which were almost eradicated by chestnut blight.Another researcher, Annie S. White, spent two years studying 12 native plants and 14 nativars in Vermont. She found that sometimes, a nativar attracted more pollinators than the wild-type.In other comparisons, the nativar, especially if it was open pollinated, attracted as many pollinators as the wild-type. Finally, there were cases where the nativar didn't attract as many pollinators as the straight species.Results of these studies indicate two trends. First, the more a plant is manipulated, the less attractive it seems to be to native pollinators. Secondly, nativars with significantly different foliage color than the wild-type attracted far fewer pollinators.If you are considering nativars to support pollinators, the best to consider are those that are open pollinated (reproduction is not by cloning) such as Phlox Jeana and Lavelle, V. virginicum Lavendelturm, Asclepias tuberosa Hello Yellow and M. fistulosa Claire Grace.Susan Struthers is a Penn State Extension Master Gardener of Butler County.

Cultivating natives provides hope for bringing back the American Elm. The nativar “Princeton” is just as attractive to insects as the original American Elm.

In testing, nativar Phlox paniculata ÔJeana´ proved as attractive to butterflies as the native species.