Uh-oh, here we go again.

At a recent gardening program, I heard a landscape architect state that his most frequent request was for a natural garden. Using native plants makes sense.

Native plants should be accustomed to our weather and soil conditions. They should have learned to cope with our insect and disease pests. They should like it here but not so much that they become invasive.

They should also provide food and cover for our native animal species.

For a definition of native plants, one often hears about those located about fifty miles north or south and maybe 200 miles east or west. Any plants to be considered native also must have been here when the first colonists arrived.

Daylilies came with the colonists. Despite the fact that they flourish wild in meadows and on road banks they aren't native, even though they have had free range for many generations.

A few minutes earlier on the same program, a well-respected native plant advocate had offered a lengthy list of good native plants for the garden. To my surprise, most of her list can easily be found in a well-stocked nursery or garden center.

Even more surprising was that there was hardly a species plant on the list. She listed cultivars and selections of natives.

To clarify, a species plant would be one that you could find in the woods, wild meadow or other undisturbed area. Until recently, native plants just happened rather than being planted by man.

Selections of natives can occur when someone spots a superior plant in the wild and then propagates from it vegetatively (cuttings). Cultivars result from our efforts to improve a plant in some fashion.

Thus, one can almost always generalize that cultivars and selections will have superior landscape qualities when compared to straight species. Cultivars and selections would share the same favorable characteristics as the species.

As one who always wrestles with the native plant definition, I was quick to challenge her inclusion of cultivars and selections on her list of natives.

She then opened my eyes with perhaps the most important point I have heard about native plants to date. "If you are doing a restoration, use the species. If you are landscaping, take advantage of the improvements that cultivars and selections offer."

As you think about your plantings, decide what is appropriate for you. My guess, and I did not think too long or count, is that probably over half the perennials, shrubs and trees you find offered for sale are derived from natives and will satisfy the environmental goals of the native plant movement.

Native cultivars and selections join non-native selections at most greenhouses and garden centers. If you wish the native species, you most likely will need to visit a nursery that specializes in natives.