My Silver rule: Don't plant nursery natives that cross with my wild natives

My "golden rule" is pretty much a no-brainer. But my silver rule can seem paradoxical - why not plant California natives in California!?  This rule doesn’t apply to gardeners such as Ms Town Mouse, who live in the middle of the suburbs. Only to those of us gardening in the WUI - the wild land-urban interface — and even for us, it’s perhaps controversial.

Not everyone agrees with this silver rule, but I want to keep my local wild plants as they are. Local = unique. Unique = irreplaceable.

I'm not always clear about what will and won’t cross. Monkeyflowers, iris, ceanothus, manzanita, dudleya – anything that you can buy nice cultivars and selections of – they’ll probably cross with indigenous natives.

Propagated local wild bush monkeyflower (Mimulus aurantiacus)

Before I became concerned, I enjoyed the garden cultivars, and they are definitely showy, with bigger and more abundant blooms, and different colors.

Cultivar Mimulus aurantiacus 'Trish', along with seaside daisy, Erigeron glaucus

After I started my local natives propagation efforts, I (sadly) removed all the cultivars. But I missed one 'Trish' down by the driveway.

Local wild bush monkeyflower plants- with a brick-red 'Trish' cross nestled among them.

Others enjoy horticultural projects of developing pretty garden flowers. That's not my project. If you live in a wilderness area, consider your own position on this.

Some people, for example, think we should plant more Southern California natives in the wild lands farther north, to prepare for global warming. Or introduce natives of the same species as the local indigenous ones, but from other areas, again, to introduce more genes into the pool, and make them more adaptable to changing climate conditions.

There's middle positions too - some people don't care about monkeyflower crosses, but do care about dudleya crosses, for example - I'm not entirely sure of the reasoning.

I’m trying to follow up on these questions about introducing nursery natives in a wilderness area, and will get back to you. For my purposes, I'll be identifying and (sadly) removing my pretty garden cultivars that can - from my viewpoint - taint the local populations.

Note: whenever I write in this vein, I become uncomfortable with the "eugenic" tone of the writing. Be assured - I'm only talking about plants here - not people!