Native Flowers

I admit that I'm not the best person when it comes to native plants. I've got plans for the the stereotypical pansies and petunias and maybe some marigolds. I'm a big fan of lantana, which is a giant garden pest in a lot of regions, but thankfully, it doesn't really like the snow, so I don't worry about it getting out of hand. Even my plants that I'm putting in for the benefit of butterflies are not from the region. I've got designer snapdragons and even my asclepias that I'm buying is the butterfly weed, which is more from the prairies than Maryland. Same with the beebalm.

To be honest, I'm just tickled pink that I don't have to get myself killed stopping the car on a busy exit ramp to harvest the few milkweed pods I can find growing in the wild, but can rather buy "designer" butterfly weed from the big seed catalogs. But really, isn't that what we should be doing? Instead of buying exotic petunias from Italian breeders, shouldn't we be buying the few "native" varieties that the plant industry actually does put out?