native plant rant

I just watched a bit of a show about flowers. It's called Flower Power and each episode focuses on a different flower and how it's been cultivated. I know... I am so lame. Today's show was about lupins and how they grow wild in England and how they're the cinderella of flowers. Now, I didn't pay huge attention and turned it off before it was over but I didn't see it once mention that lupins are native to North America and were just perfect before they were cultivated and hybridized for the garden industry and how they're the only larval food for the Blue Karner Butterfly (or something like that), which are becoming extinct because all the native lupins are disappearing while everyone plants garden cultivars, which the butterflies don't like. Arrggh.

That said, my lupins do feed an awful lot of aphids and their beautiful foliage often disappears while they flower. Here is a picture of one of my lupins.
Sadly it died mysteriously just after I took this picture. But it self-seeds readily so I have lots of others.
tag: native plants