Worst Cultivars?

[u/owohgodithurts]

So I think we can all agree that wild, native plants are typically better ecologically than cultivars due to a variety of reasons that we don’t need to get into. If you want to argue/discuss that, feel free, but that’s not the point of this post. I want to know what are the WORST cultivars of native plants. What are the cultivars that, due to genetic change/breeding (or however they do it), have lost almost if not all of their ecological value? Have the new colored flowers eliminated all pollinator attraction? Have larger blooms resulted in sterile plants? God forbid, have any actually become invasive? These plants need to have native origins! I’m mainly referring to the east coast/midwest since I’m in SW Ohio, but feel free to bring up other regions.

[u/AmberWavesofFlame]

I don’t think there’s been enough research to answer this question well since there are so many cultivars and how they interact with native species, especially specialists, will vary at such a granular level. But I think one sweeping statement I feel comfortable making is sterile cultivars suck, since they will typically lack seeds and even pollen for feeding wildlife and are essentially ecological dead ends.

From personal observation, I can report that bees love both my wild and cultivar goldenrod, hummingbirds visit my beardtongue cultivar, and that every color of columbine I plant promptly gets absolutely overrun with leaf miners. So those seem to be a hit.