As Brenda MacKenzie describes it, “My crazy garden is an ordinary urban lot. I have Joe-Pye Weed, three kinds of milkweed, wild irises, native Cardinal Flower, echinacea, Beebalm, and old-fashioned tall zinnias, all of which attract bees and butterflies. The bees in the yard are pretty clearly some variety of carpenter bee. There are other species too, but there are hundreds of carpenter bees. Our neighbour had to cut down a large dying maple and had a lot of the wood stacked in his yard. This may be providing the habitat for the wild bees.
“We have included more native plants in recent years, installed a disappearing stream, have been using no pesticides, and have composted avidly for 30 years. The results were not instant, but we have all manner of visitors — bees, songbirds, dragonflies, and butterflies, including red and white admirals, black swallowtails, and monarchs. All of these come and go depending on what is blooming.”
The area of this garden is about 80 square metres.