Some Rational Thinking - Native Plants VS Non-natives

Non-native tropical milkweed

Monarch caterpillar feasting on non-native milkweed

I have been a staunch supporter of the native plant movement for more than 30 years in Florida. I believe my credentials in that regard are unquestioned, but I am constantly dismayed by comments I see posted in social media primarily that seem to miss the point about why native plants are important in our developed landscapes. The controversy surrounding the use of native vs non-native milkweeds is at the center of much of this.
Let me state that I have planted 4 native milkweed species in my own landscape. I created a wetland setting (which I've written about) in my backyard so I could grow two of them - pink swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) and swamp white milkweed (Asclepias perennis). The other two - butterflyweed (Asclepias tuberosa) and whorled milkweed (Asclepias verticillata) are in my developing wildflower garden in the front. I treasure my native milkweeds for both their beauty and their functionality, but not because they are simply "natives."  Our movement to use natives is derived for their ability to create living landscapes. That is the goal; not simply to replace non-natives with native plants. We lose sight of the prize, so to speak, when we veer from that objective and become too dogmatic.
My new yard is sitting in the middle of a typical urban desert. I suspect that if I were to take an aerial photo of the square mile surrounding my new residence I would find that nearly half of the landscapes have no lawn - they have been converted to gravel... Within this square mile there are very few native plants. Most are there accidentally - left alone because the property owners do nothing in their yards, not because they understand the value of what they have. The created pond across from me has no littoral zone, but aside from an eastern red cedar and a few live oaks, the banks are invasive woody and herbaceous species. The yard I have inherited is like most here, hedges of pittosporum and ligustrum, a camphor tree for shade and some non-native juniper.  My neighbors have the ubiquitous crotons that I despise and would have immediately yanked out by their roots. These are the lifeless non-natives.
For the first months here, I saw very little life except in the pond. No butterflies, bees or other pollinators and few songbirds. Even now, the wave of migratory songbirds that are passing through my friends' landscapes, and likely my former one, have not stopped by. There is no reason to. My hope is that my developing landscape will change that, but it will take time as trees and shrubs need years to produce flowers and fruit - hence pollinators and caterpillars and nesting sites
My developing wildflower areas, however, are attracting a wide variety of pollinators. Today, I saw at least 4 different species of bees using what little is already blooming and I had a spicebush swallowtail puddling in the moist soil around my small woodland. Over the past few days, I've seen my first sulfur and white peacock butterflies as well as a fiery skipper and a Cassius blue. It would seem that what I am doing already is reaping rewards - which brings me back to my original issue. I've also grown a few flats of tropical milkweed (Asclepias curassavica). 
If I lived next to a nature preserve (and I don't come close to one), I would reconsider having this plant in pots. Its seeds, if allowed to, can float some distance away and establish in natural areas. Since that is not a concern, there would have to be other arguments to cause me to rethink this plant choice. I do not know of one, though others continually shout the alarm.
Although I have four native milkweeds, and I know of no others currently being propagated (I've tried myself with a great many other species), the monarchs have chosen to decimate the tropical milkweed to an extent not even somewhat seen in the native species. They have used the two wetland ones, but sparingly. Very few have made it to maturity and pupated. None have oviposited on the upland species and it has been a rare thing to have them do so in my many years of experience. In the past week, however, monarchs have eaten nearly every tropical milkweed seedling to the bare stem and most have grown to the size needed to pupate.
The alarm about this plant seems to be largely irrational - except for its ability to colonize natural areas. I've read that the caterpillars that use this plant are stunted - NOT true. I've read that it somehow reduces wildlife (i.e. bird food) value, but of course birds do not eat monarch caterpillars once they've tried one and wasps and lizards eat them regardless of the host plant they've fed upon. Most often, I've read that it somehow weakens their population over time. I've not seen real scientific data to support that, however. In talking to real butterfly scientists, none have that data and they will freely admit it. If we are to "rip out" all our tropical milkweed in an effort to help monarchs, it would seem prudent that we do it for rational, data-driven reasons. If those reasons surface, I will rip mine out too, but until then my goal of creating life in this once-sterile landscape supersedes any desire I might have to "go native."
There are non-native plants that feed caterpillars - some better than the natives themselves, at least in my experience. There are some non-native flowering plants that greatly benefit pollinators. It is only the invasive ones that we must avoid - as well as the plants, native or otherwise, that have virtually no habitat value for anything. Native plants, by their nature, are not a magic bullet to offset the ecological damage we've created by traditional landscapes. It's the attributes of each species that we should focus on as well as the very real need to promote diversity instead of near-monocultures - native or not. My developing landscape already has more than two dozen native woody species that I've added and more than three dozen species of flowering plants for pollinators, but it also has a few non-natives because they work well in the context I'm living in. We should never forget the reason why we promote native plants. It's to create life around us not simply to use native plants. As we move to try to modify traditional landscape practices, we must do so rationally or we risk not being taken seriously and we risk falling far short of our potential goal.

Monarch caterpillar on native swamp pink milkweed