I just went recently hoping to see butterfly weed because I’ve been wanting more to fill out an area and was very disappointed that all they had was weird-colored kinda ugly coneflower cultivars and not much else. I suppose it’s a start though.
BeeSilver9
This is all thanks to me putting a comment requesting natives in the comment box. Your welcome.
Shift_Key19
What are the odds they are labeling all the plants as “native” regardless of the store location?
The_Poster_Nutbag
I would be super cautious of big box plants. They are likely treated with harmful pesticides (like bee-killing neocotinoids) necessary for large scale manufacturing and distribution just like other big box landscape plants.
What nursery are these coming from?
whateverfyou
White purple coneflower?!
windexfresh
Ugh I miss Costco so much ๐ฉ I gotta find out if my mil has a card lmao
Feralpudel
Iโm seeing a lot of cultivar hate/suspicion in this discussion, and I get itโafter all, the ridiculous double bloom echinacea cultivars are the poster child of โcultivars bad.โ
But hear me out. You want proof before you believe a cultivar is as attractive to pollinators as the straight species? That evidence is available from the Mt Cuba trials.
Some of them performed poorly and were duds for humans AND pollinators. But others scored extremely well on both fronts.
Iโm helping a friend add more natives to her yard; sheโs in another area. She wanted some more echinacea and located a nearby nursery that had โKismet.โ I checked the Mt Cuba trial and it was a top performer, so she bought it.
Someone online really loved daisies but was trying to move towards natives. At least one of the white cultivars is also a top performer.
I canโt read the Costco labels, but my point is assuming theyโre credible cultivars, TAKE THIS AS A WIN. They might not be for you, and thatโs fine. (I have a mullet yardโJunior League garden in the front; meadow riot in the back, so my yard has something to upset everybody.)
For every person that is going to trek out to a native nursery or plant sale or cold strat seeds, there are probably hundreds if not thousands who will pick up a plant from Costco or mainstream nursery and put it in their yards.
If youโre going to purse your lips and judge a cultivar guilty until proven innocent, thatโs fine. But at this point I think we have some general framework to assess new cultivars:
โFor nectar/pollen plants, donโt fuck with the bloom shape.
โFor larval host plants, donโt fuck with the leaf color, especially by making it darker.
Echinacea is a sturdy plant that is extremely attractive to humans and pollinators. TAKE THE WIN.
(I DO share the poster nutbagโs concerns about neonics. So work with the nurseries and stores in your area and try to find out. Work with your native plant society to ask louder questions and get legislation passed. Give some money to Xerces and help them pressure Costco.)
Since A. tuberosa is being sold at some Costcos as well, a Monarch webinar summarizing research found that the cultivars (there may be only one) performed comparably.
This was posted about yesterday. As usual, I have deep misgivings about massive commercialization of native plants. Although I like seeing this over pure non-native ornamentals, this kind of production is usually not reflective of local ecotypes or the genetic pressure that results in robust plants well suited to your area. This, in turn, causes the genes of the plants that were selected for mass production to become over represented in the genomes of wild plants.
If you can, grow the most local plants you have access to.
WinstonThorne
That’s awesome!
That said, I put in a new rose garden this year and the Costco roses were…not great. Price was good, caliper looked OK, but once they got in the ground they started fussing. One died outright within two weeks; the other five or so are on life support. I bought some from Home Depot as well (for about $5-7 more each) and they’re thriving and blooming beautifully.
11 Comments
I just went recently hoping to see butterfly weed because I’ve been wanting more to fill out an area and was very disappointed that all they had was weird-colored kinda ugly coneflower cultivars and not much else. I suppose it’s a start though.
This is all thanks to me putting a comment requesting natives in the comment box. Your welcome.
What are the odds they are labeling all the plants as “native” regardless of the store location?
I would be super cautious of big box plants. They are likely treated with harmful pesticides (like bee-killing neocotinoids) necessary for large scale manufacturing and distribution just like other big box landscape plants.
What nursery are these coming from?
White purple coneflower?!
Ugh I miss Costco so much ๐ฉ I gotta find out if my mil has a card lmao
Iโm seeing a lot of cultivar hate/suspicion in this discussion, and I get itโafter all, the ridiculous double bloom echinacea cultivars are the poster child of โcultivars bad.โ
But hear me out. You want proof before you believe a cultivar is as attractive to pollinators as the straight species? That evidence is available from the Mt Cuba trials.
Some of them performed poorly and were duds for humans AND pollinators. But others scored extremely well on both fronts.
Iโm helping a friend add more natives to her yard; sheโs in another area. She wanted some more echinacea and located a nearby nursery that had โKismet.โ I checked the Mt Cuba trial and it was a top performer, so she bought it.
Someone online really loved daisies but was trying to move towards natives. At least one of the white cultivars is also a top performer.
I canโt read the Costco labels, but my point is assuming theyโre credible cultivars, TAKE THIS AS A WIN. They might not be for you, and thatโs fine. (I have a mullet yardโJunior League garden in the front; meadow riot in the back, so my yard has something to upset everybody.)
For every person that is going to trek out to a native nursery or plant sale or cold strat seeds, there are probably hundreds if not thousands who will pick up a plant from Costco or mainstream nursery and put it in their yards.
If youโre going to purse your lips and judge a cultivar guilty until proven innocent, thatโs fine. But at this point I think we have some general framework to assess new cultivars:
โFor nectar/pollen plants, donโt fuck with the bloom shape.
โFor larval host plants, donโt fuck with the leaf color, especially by making it darker.
Echinacea is a sturdy plant that is extremely attractive to humans and pollinators. TAKE THE WIN.
(I DO share the poster nutbagโs concerns about neonics. So work with the nurseries and stores in your area and try to find out. Work with your native plant society to ask louder questions and get legislation passed. Give some money to Xerces and help them pressure Costco.)
Since A. tuberosa is being sold at some Costcos as well, a Monarch webinar summarizing research found that the cultivars (there may be only one) performed comparably.
https://mtcubacenter.org/trials/echinacea-mid-atlantic-region/
This was posted about yesterday. As usual, I have deep misgivings about massive commercialization of native plants. Although I like seeing this over pure non-native ornamentals, this kind of production is usually not reflective of local ecotypes or the genetic pressure that results in robust plants well suited to your area. This, in turn, causes the genes of the plants that were selected for mass production to become over represented in the genomes of wild plants.
If you can, grow the most local plants you have access to.
That’s awesome!
That said, I put in a new rose garden this year and the Costco roses were…not great. Price was good, caliper looked OK, but once they got in the ground they started fussing. One died outright within two weeks; the other five or so are on life support. I bought some from Home Depot as well (for about $5-7 more each) and they’re thriving and blooming beautifully.
Yet another reason to love Costco