I never designed my yard specifically for wildlife, but I left half the backyard wild and preferred flowers that bees, butterflies, and hummers liked.
A lot of various flowers, butterfly bushes, coneflowers and monarda... And it helps that I'm organic. I still have honeybees and bumbles around each year, lots of various little bees I can't identify, small and large butterflies, hummers come every year, etc.
Sorry I'm not good at identifying the smaller native bees, but they are around all the time.
It is common to see a possum on the deck at night, a hawk in the backyard, and a wide variety of songbirds around the sunflower and thistle feeders.
I have recently put up an orange feeder, but haven't seen anything there yet. I have hopes.
The strangest thing I have seen in my yard was a pair of anhingas. I saw them in a tree and went crazy trying to figure out a "black egret". Then saw an article about wayward anhingas in the County (I'm in Southern MD) and they had been in MY tree.
But I credit being organic for all the life in the yard. I don' t especially work at it, I just try to do no harm.
