The Nature Conservancy had a recent article in its magazine about the change in bloom time for many natives (based on temperature) and the difficulty that can c

The Nature Conservancy had a recent article in its magazine about the change in bloom time for many natives (based on temperature) and the difficulty that can cause for migrating birds and for animals (whose schedules may be based on length of day). For this reason, I am moving away from native-only to a more utilitarian approach. (And don't get me wrong, I have scores of native plants in my very small yard.) I am thinking more about native-nearby plants and plants that may feed wildlife at adjacent times. So maybe it's best to have several types of milkweed that bloom at different times, as someone else noted below. I'm in the Midwest and I'll also note the adage that many of our natives follow "sleep, creep, leap". Year 1, you'll be like "damn is this stuff even growing, this sucks" and year 2 you'll say "well I guess it came back? maybe?" and year 3 you'll say "it's starting to look nice here!" I'm also taking a slightly heterodox approach in that I am mixing in non-native edibles with glee (I've got at least 6 kinds of berry bush for instance, some native some not). The weight is still on natives, but I've been influenced by, who, Todd Hemenway?? who pointed out that the ecological impact of shipping berries from far-away lands is much worse than the ecological impact of having berry bush that's well-behaved and not native. Similarly, there are very few non-native plants I try to abolish anymore. Instead to the best of my ability I eat them. It is extraordinary how many plants can be eaten. From Japanese knotweed (cook it like rhubarb in sweets, or stir-fry) to hops to daisies (eat young like arugula) to garlic mustard (great pesto) to hostas (nice asparagus-like flavor when roasted or sautéed young). I'm not introducing these, not at all, but when they appear I don't get xenophobic, I get dinner. Which also sounds kind of creepy. But what I mean is that I'm not digging up my echinacea to use the roots medicinally; I don't have enough plants to do so sustainably yet -- but I sure am serving 6 linear feet worth of hostas at a dinner party.