Pretty Isn’t Always Pollinator-Friendly: What a New Study Shows

This blog post is written by Terrell Roulston. Terrell Roulston is a Community Ecologist and Pollinator Expert, and is currently a Research Associate at Acadia University, in Wolfville, NS. Previously, Terrell worked at UBC Botanical Garden and produced the  Native Bee Brochure and another blog post about the Honey Bee Myth. For questions feel free to reach him at terrellroulston@gmail.com.

Spring has finally awoken, and with it comes the emergence of native bees and other pollinators. It’s also the time when many of us, myself included, are dreaming up garden plans and picking out seeds for the season.

As many have heard me say before, for those looking to promote stewardship of native pollinators in their gardens we need to be planting native plant species to best support our native pollinators! Vancouver is home to about 150 native bee species (along with 100s of other native pollinators), and without the support of environmentally friendly gardens in the otherwise depauperate urban setting, these bee species would be much worse off. Thankfully, many garden centres and seed producers are catching on, and many now are promoting “native seeds”, “pollinator friendly”, or “local ecotypes” natives. 

*Note: I recognize that non-native plant species also offer floral resources (e.g., nectar and pollen) for pollinators (both native and non-native)—a point highlighted in Dr. Elizabeth Elle’s talk, “Ecological Gardening: Supporting the Biodiversity that Works for You.” However, this post is focused exclusively on native plants and their ‘nativars,’ and does not compare them to non-natives.

Photo 1: A bumblebee work (Bombus impatiens) visiting tomato flowers (Solanum lycopersicum) that need to be buzz-pollinated to produce tomatoes, a type of pollination bumblebees specialize in! This species has been introduced to BC by escaping tomato greenhouses in the Lower Mainland. Photo credit: Terrell Roulston (CC-BY-NC-4.0).

Still, one question has often stumped me—and it’s one I’ve heard many of you ask too: “What about native cultivars (a.k.a. ‘nativars’), are they good for pollinators too?”. Most often, these are varieties of native plant species that have either been intentionally bred or otherwise discovered, selecting for increased aesthetic value, such as red flowers in a typically yellow flowering plant, or a mosaic of colours not common in the wild natives. While these plants are beautiful, I have always been a bit suspicious of their ability to attract native pollinator species as they are artificially chosen for our enjoyment. And until now I could only advise folks off this intuition.

Published in January this year, a timely study led by Dr. Jen J.-M. Hayes2 and colleagues at Oregon State University asked exactly this question: 

Do wild type (wild-sourced) native plants differ in attraction to pollinators (bees, butterflies and hoverflies) in comparison to human selected native cultivars (naturally occuring and genetically modified phenotypes)? 

Photo 2: A hoverfly (Diptera: Syrphidae) visiting lamb’s-quarters (Chenopodium album) in the margin of a farmer’s field. These flies are incredibly important in your garden, as they are not only important pollinators, but also their larvae (immature young) provide pest control by eating aphids! Photo credit: Terrell Roulston (CC-BY-NC-4.0).

In short? Beauty isn’t everything—and when it comes to pollinators, looks can be deceiving. Generally speaking these human selected cultivars do not always serve the same ecological functions as their wild type counterparts. But let me break that down some more…

They focused on five native Pacific Northwest wildflower (herein wild type) species and compared them to 11 different cultivars (1-3 per species) that are commonly sold in nurseries and garden centres in Oregon (see Table 1 for list of species). Most cultivars had been bred for traits like flower color or size through genetic modification of hybridization, while some were minimally modified selections occurring in nature.

They planted these species in replicated plots and monitored them from 2020–2022, recording pollinator visits by: Visual observations (watching who visited), Vacuum sampling (collecting bees and flies to identify later). Specifically the authors looked at:

• Total pollinator abundance (counts); 
• Bee, butterfly, and syrphid fly richness (number of species); 
• Whether specialist pollinators showed preferences.

By comparison of pollinator visitation rates (the abundance of visitors), wild type natives were preferred 37% of the time, while native cultivars were preferred in only 8% of comparisons, and in the remaining 55% no differences were found (both natives and their cultivars were visited at equal rates). But looking closer at results there are more nuanced differences.

Table 1. List of native plant species (wild types) and their cultivars included in the experiment. Cultivars ranged in origin from hybridized or genetically modified to natural occurring ‘minimally developed’ phenotypes. For photos of each native and associated cultivar(s) please see Table 1 in Hayes et al. 2025, available for free here.

Photo 3. A bumblebee queen (Bombus impatiens) visiting a domesticated apple flower (Malus domestica) for nectar. When queens first emerge in the spring they are hungry for nectar, and won’t collect pollen until they have built a nest. Photo credit: Terrell Roulston (CC-BY-NC-4.0).

For starters, native wild type plants consistently had more pollinator species (greater richness) visiting them than their cultivar counterparts. And when considering specialist bees, which are most vulnerable to habitat disturbances and have greater dependance on natives, they were collected much more often on these wild type plants.

With that said, not all ‘nativars’ were poor attractors of native pollinators. For example, cultivars that were minimally developed including cultivars of Symphyotrichum subspicatum: ‘Sauvie Snow’ and ‘Sauvie Star’ which are selected from wild populations for subtle colour differences still attracted pollinators well (and in some cases) better than the wild types. However, other cultivars that are more heavily modified such as Clarkia ‘Dwarf White’ or Eschscholzia ‘White’, which had major flower color changes, supported fewer or less diverse pollinators.

This study gives weight to what many of us suspected: when it comes to supporting pollinators, wild-type native plants are usually the better choice for supporting native pollinators. They support more species, including specialists, and are more ecologically functional than their more ornamental, heavily bred counterparts.

That doesn’t mean all cultivars are off-limits—minimally developed selections, especially those chosen from natural populations (like Symphyotrichum ‘Sauvie Snow’). But as gardeners, especially in urban areas like Vancouver, we have an opportunity to go beyond what’s simply “pretty,” and plant with a purpose.

So as you head to your local nursery this spring or scroll through seed catalogues, remember: your garden is an important refuge for pollinators. Look for true wild types, local ecotypes, and where possible, ask your supplier about the origin of the plants. Pollinators will thank you for it—and your garden will be buzzing in no time.

I’d love to hear what native plants you’re growing this year—or if you’ve had experience with growing wild types or cultivars in your own garden.

Happy planting!

1. Elle, E. (2025). Vancouver Master Gardeners – Spring Seminar 2025: Ecological Gardening: Supporting the Biodiversity that Works for You. Retrieved from https://bcgardenclubs.com/events/vancouver-master-gardeners-spring-seminar-2025/

1. Hayes, J.J., Bell, N.C., Best, L.R., Bruslind, S.R., Johnson, D.O., Mead, M.E., Spofford, T.S. and Langellotto, G.A. (2025). Pacific Northwest native plants and native cultivars, part I: pollinator visitation. Environmental Entomology, 54(1), 199–214. https://doi.org/10.1093/ee/nvae126