[Re: AFNN Cultivar Policy by The Natives (N. Bissett, AFNN Cult. Comm. Member)]

Out of State Cultivar Policy at AFNN

Comments by Nancy J. Bissett, The Natives, Inc.

Since letters first started in my e-mail about the issue of advertising out-of-state cultivars, I have been troubled on how to convincingly argue against this without appearing over-alarmist and purist. My replies always come back to our goals as native plant growers and what we are trying to promote: sales, yes, but also an ethic of preserving and increasing our native flora.

Though the Florida political boundary is obviously an artificial boundary that does not follow an ecological division, it is the one on which we have based the Association of Native Florida Nurseries.   We have considered plants not native to this political division as ones outside of our advertising scope.  Plants carrying a single set of genetic information that was developed over time, in an area outside of this political boundary, should also not be considered a part of our endorsement. 

Whether for landscape or restoration, what is our goal in growing and marketing native plants?  We see each plant, whether placed in a restoration site, home landscape, or around commercial buildings, as performing a variety of functions. These plants, though scattered in more and more home, institutional, and business landscapes, also help to serve as connecting corridors between native ecosystems that are being conserved. Corridors purchased for conservation cannot and are not doing the entire job. 

Existing native plant communities can and have existed in much smaller acreages than 40. Scrub knolls containing a number of endangered species are just one example.  All of these smaller plant communities and/or remnant communities are also part of our native flora corridor system.

How well do cultivars with a single set of genetic information developed out of the range of most of Florida function within Florida? For many years, flowering dogwoods that originated to the north have been sold in central Florida . Even though the flowering dogwood range extends at least to Bartow in central Florida, these plants that originated far to the north usually produce few blooms for which the dogwood is famous. Fringe trees are another example with similar results. Many species, such as the red maple, are upland plants farther north and swamp plants in Florida, requiring more water to thrive. Many cultivars, however, produced beyond Florida's borders may perform very well in a landscape setting. 

But we are also concerned by the effect that a single gene pool of a cultivar propagated by the thousands, ten thousands, hundred thousands, and millions, and placed within our native flora corridor system will ultimately have on our native gene pool. AFNN cannot prevent this from happening, but should we be promoting it?  Or should we be promoting and selling the fully diverse gene pool of species within Florida?

The question of genetic drift by planting material different from a localized population has troubled people around the world and there are many examples.  Concern about this issue has led the California Native Plant Society to include in their guidelines under Horticultural Landscaping, number 6: Avoid landscaping with cultivars of taxa that grow locally, since their genetic make-up may be unknown, non-local, or from multiple, wide-ranging populations.  Cultivars of locally-occurring taxa should be avoided unless it is absolutely certain they originated locally.

We have also had strong warnings from Florida botanists and plant ecologists about selling and planting some species that originate in Florida from one side of the state to the other since the introductions may pollute the existing gene pool. Dune sunflower, Helianthus debilis, and pineland lantana, Lantana depressa, are two examples.

It may be difficult to point a finger at absolute proof that non-native cultivars have caused or will cause lasting harm to our native flora; however, I would rather err on the side of caution in a matter where we
would otherwise be promoting material not native to Florida origin that our growers, who wish to, can easily promote outside of the AFNN advertising.

Nancy J. Bissett
The Natives, Inc.
2929 JB Carter Road
Davenport, FL 33837
Phone 863 422 6664
Fax 863 421 6520
Cell 863 287 3904

[And more commentary by Bill Bissett, The Natives]

WHAT TO DO? WHAT TO DO?

Back when nobody really knew if they were growing Yellow Star Anise or the Asian one. Back when the only dogwood stock came from Alabama, Kentucky, Missouri, or even Wisconsin. Back when nobody cared. But that was a long time ago. And now WE DO CARE! I remember in the 70’s fighting the use of Cornus florida because there was no local seed produced material. I would not use Anise because I had been sold a look alike Asian Illicium and was totally embarrassed by the whole thing. I have never spec’d or used ‘Henry’s Garnet’ Itea, ‘Little Gem’ Magnolia, or ‘Stellar Pink’ Cornus. I would much rather use green Serenoa than the coastal silver. But I do spec and use a lot of Riefler’s wonderful finds and creations – ‘Mrs Shiller’s Delight, the dwarf Mrycianthes, and grafted Ilex opaca on cassine root stock.  I still use Indian Hawthorn, Crape Myrtle, and Dwarf Confederate Jasmine too. So is that incongruous or what. I don’t know. I can’t think in that many directions at once!

What I can’t abide is the hypocrisy that I and most of us run into everyday. I dealt with a nationally respected “Environmental Educational” group who refused to use Serenoa, Mimosa strigillosa, Muhlenbergia capillaries, (“not native to this parish”… ) in a public park landscape, but defended the preservation of Chinese Tallow ( “it is bird habitat”…), Water Hyacinth ( “It’s been here for so long it is considered naturalized”… and “the bloom is pretty for the visitors”…) and all manner of exotic landscape material in the new landscape (“they are established hardy landscape plants”). The fact that all of the mentioned plants historically occurred in that or neighboring parishes didn’t seem to matter. My response was:

There has been a knee jerk reaction to use of native plants in man made landscapes that is perplexing.  If it’s a native plant, it has to satisfy an extreme set of requirements. If it is an exotic, it just needs to be non-invasive. The argument that has been espoused by several well known biologist / land managers is that if an endangered plant species is not historically known to have occurred on a particular site, even though the system is right in all respects, the site cannot be used as a receptor site. In other words, they want to protect theses species INTO EXTINCTION! The demand that native plants in a man-made landscape be anything but regionally “native” is similarly misplaced. To even try to find plants that are only indigenous to Orleans Parish (that also meet the above mentioned landscape requirements) is misguided and probably impossible. If that is a demand, then this Landscape Architect will also demand that every exotic species, particularly the invasives that are so pervasive throughout the park, be eliminated. 

Then there is the State Park whose manager went out to Home Depot to purchase all manner of exotic nuisance plants for the headquarters’ landscape. And the State Park where the preservation of exotic azaleas became a non-negotiable imperative.

Genetic pollution is real. California has its Poppy, Monterey pine, California Dandelion, and Bush Monkeyflower, as dangerous examples of how screwed up the genetic pool can get with 100 years or so of man’s misguided activities. Australia also has the genetic drift of hybrid native and non-native eucalyptus into the native stands. And Mexico has the problem of genetically manipulated maize contaminating the indigenous farmers’ centuries’ old crops.

Requirements for ecosystem restoration are not in question. It is a very difficult and exacting coordination of establishing the right genetics on the right, properly prepared site, at the right time.  Not at all easy to do – well!

But when it comes to man made landscapes, if we are really going to say that the use of well-behaved exotics is more environmentally sound than cultivars of native plants – I’M NOT BUYING IT! 

So it comes down to what this organization is all about. We all agree that it is a marketing organization.  Marketing FLORIDA NATIVE PLANTS for all uses and all markets.  What does our Code of Ethics say?

Cultivars and AFNN Plant Listings

AFNN only lists those cultivars which have originated under natural circumstances within the geographic boundaries of the state of Florida. We do not list native species cultivars originating outside of Florida (e.g., Magnolia grandiflora 'Little Gem') or cultivars arising from selection of artifically hybridized species. Growers may have other cultivars available; interested clients should inquire.

Back to ‘Stellar Pink’ Cornus. It doesn’t work in Florida. ‘Henry’s Garnet is from Pennsylvania. Why would we want it to work? ‘Little Gem’? I don’t see any real value in it – but that’s just my personal opinion. 

There is still a lot of educating to do before we will get the ‘European Royal Estate’ landscape inertia out of the mind set. And maybe we never will. The Landscape Industry is - pathetically enough – a fashion industry. Ecological function is almost never considered. Sometimes I want to tell a frustrating client to block up the windows, paint a mural of Kew gardens on the inside walls and stay inside the rest of their lives. No fuss, no muss and no water bills. The good thing is that maybe natural succession would take place around them and they wouldn’t be the wiser. Cultivars (native and non-native) will sell and sell well. Neither the AFNN nor the Florida Native Plant Society nor the California Native Plant Society will change that. But we can stick to our original goal of ethically marketing Florida Native Plant material grown in Florida from Florida genetic propagules.

Bottom line is that we Are AFNN.  Not AWCS (ANYTHING WE CAN SELL). We set out to promote a philosophy and educate toward an ideal with the goal of marketing our product. Now we are in danger of corrupting our philosophy to sell someone else’s product. 

Bill Bissett ASLA
The Natives Inc