Please keep doing it. As a poor landless peasant I celebrate your attempt to preserve some of nature. You're buying time, which is vitally important

Since getting my own place I can actually have a more natural garden, removed so much concrete. So many bees! I can even hear them from inside now that they are swarming around the poppies. Sage and to some extent chive flowers got a few bees earlier in the year but those flowers have died off now.

Should take pictures of them so that in the future we can remember what bees were.

From 1 internet stranger to another, thank you. It really means a lot to me that people are doing what they can at their own level like you. I know how demotivating and isolating it can feel to be the only one doing the necessary work.

Spray your neighbors lawn with salt water

I dislike the mowing robots because they seem to encourage the Flatt grass only gardens and I hate them.

You can still have flowers around them yes, but the grass is mostly a plant and insect desert.

It's great that you're helping your native plants stand against the invasives, they're like the schoolyard bullies of the backyard.

English ivy is a tough one, but at least getting the vertical growth is a fairly easy to manage. the vertical growth is also more problematic because it is a requirement for producing berries and killing trees

It's great that you're helping your native plants stand against the invasives, they're like the schoolyard bullies of the backyard.

Visit some Garden Centres near you- often they'll have seed mixes of local perennial flowers available for purchase, you just need to spread the seeds in the spring or autumn.

Also, "weeds" aren't always weeds, they're just plants that some people decided get in the way of monocultures. If it's flowering, it's feeding insects, so leave it be.

The fireflies are awesome in my area this summer and my humble yard is part of that. It's honestly so satisfying watching plants come back year after year, bigger and bigger

I'd check for native species of clover, which is invasive in most of Canada.

They're called that in a lot of places.

Source: I'm from Texas.

And here's a pretty picture to prove it.

Yinz can get ahtta tahn.

West Coast?

I mean, nobody asked if you believed anyone

Sure, maybe. But my yard has frogs and fireflies in it and my neighbors' don't. That seems pretty empirical to me.

The best bit of your nonsense is where you say composting isn't composting

I'm not maintaining most of my shit, half-assed maintaining some, and meticulously maintaining some (veg patch).

The meticulous part doesn't do well unless the unmaintained part is left to do its thing. When people interfere it suffers. That's how nature and biodiversity work. Leave it to do its thing and generally it works out itself. Every now and then you may need to intervene if something is becoming problematic and choking out everything else, but generally nature knows what it's doing.

The thing that makes not maintaining your shit some great intentional effort, is the constant battle against other humans who wish to cut everything down and maintain order. If you're a sole owner you can tell them to fuck off, but if members of your family disagree or it's a communal space, that may be far more difficult.

Funny you chose those plants in particular though, because dandelions and various types of thistle are both recommended by the Royal Horticultural Society as being of particular aid to pollinator insects.

https://www.rhs.org.uk/science/research/plants-for-pollinators

https://www.rhs.org.uk/science/pdf/conservation-and-biodiversity/wildlife/plants-for-pollinators-wildflowers.pdf

Luckily no one gives a shit what you believe.

Depends on where you're from