Several years ago, I was consulting with a new client. We made our way around to a small bed with mismatched plants and began trying to decide what could stay and what should go.
“How are you enjoying this coneflower?” I asked, noticing it was a double-flowered Echinacea. The response I received surprised me: “I never see any pollinators on it, even though the plant tag said it would support them. It can go.” After that, our conversation shifted even more to the ecosystem services that plants provide, including support for larval and adult insects and bugs. Over time, I’ve had more and more of these exchanges, both in person and online, where the elephant in the room is always “Are native plant cultivars good or bad?”
My answer these days is that it depends. The more we alter
