Yes, they will!
When my partner and I moved to our current townhouse (which is seemingly a ship, floating in a sea of concrete and asphalt), one of the first things my partner and first I noticed was a small garden in the front yard. Now this garden is really quite small, but that didn’t deter us from doing something we are both excited about, which was to plant a garden with native species in order to help the insects, birds and animals in our neighbourhood.
It may not seem like much..and it wasn’t, as we planted some Black-eyed Susans, Hairy Wood Mint, Butterfly Weed and Columbine, and there was already Goldenrod that had established itself which we let grow.
It’s been two years since we planted our garden and this year it really thrived. The Susans shot up in mid summer, the Columbine flowered for a month and a bit. The Butterfly Weed grew nice and tall with brilliant orange flowers, and the Wood Mint is a healthy looking specimen (although no flowering happened this year).
And with the blooms, came…everyone. We’ve had Monarch Butterflys (whose numbers are in a state of decline so to have one in our garden was a wonderful surprise). Numerous types of bees, wasps, flies, aphids and shortly later; ladybugs. Also Beetles, moths, rabbits, squirrels and birds.
Which leads me to the most exciting visitors to our garden this year..as a week ago I came home from work and was surprised as in our tiny thriving native garden, a fresh-from-the-nest fledgling American Goldfinch! Given that we live in a townhouse common, and our front “yard” is less than a few meters squared that quickly gives way to a large parking lot, we were very surprised (and happy) to see that our garden was able to provide sanctuary for these birds. As we ended up hosting two fledgling goldfinches over the span of a few days.
Initially they had perched themselves on the Black-eyed Susans, clinging to the stems as they swayed in the breeze. We watched nervously through the window while the wind would occasionally pick up speed, giving them quite a ride on those rather flimsy stems all the while their mother would show up consistently to feed them. They held on! and over the next few days they made our garden their safe space. As cars sped by, children played and people walked their dogs all in close proximity to them, our garden had provided the cover required for them to stay safe. That made us realize how important it is to provide spaces like these for wildlife.
When we develop land for human use, we seem to forget that in the process something else was destroyed. Since we destroy wildlife habitat to make our own, I think it’s only fair that we at least try to offset that destruction however we can. By planting native plants simultaneously for beauty and as food/shelter for wildlife we can individually make a small difference, and if we do this together in numbers we can make a large one.
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