I’ve become very adamant about growing native flowers for pollinators and native berries for birds (so much so that I’m making Native Plant Merch), but I still grow non-native fruit trees and nativars (cultivars evolved from native plants, like ka-bluey blueberries).
Sometimes I feel bad about the non-native stuff and nativars, but I rationalize it by: I gotta eat. Yes, I could try to live off the land with just native plants, but the difference in quality of fruit for human consumption between native berries and nativars can be pretty significant.
I have wild blueberry (named “deerberry”) plants growing in my yard, but the fruit is very seedy, small, and the yields are low compared to commercial cultivars. I guess seeds are healthy, but they definitely don’t tase as good as big, firm, slightly tart-yet-sweet blueberries.
Grow Native Plants
There’s a lot of people who repeat the phrase “grow native plants” and unfortunately for me, I tend to tack “exclusively” on the end of that in my mind. But, that’s just black and white thinking, which is never good.
So, yes, growing and eating native berries is better than growing and eating non-native and nativar berries, but that is still better than buying berries from a grocery store that have been shipped hundreds of miles. It’s also better than buying berries from a local farmer, which have fewer food miles than grocery store berries, but my home grown berries are better measured in “food feet” than food miles.
Maybe I’m just processing my guilt of existence, but hopefully if you have that same guilt you’ll realize, like me, that nothing and nobody is perfect.