I began growing White Evening Primroses for the lovely, sweet-smelling flowers that open in late afternoon and bloom all night. They are tough natives that can grow in clay soil and baking sun. You can actually watch the flowers open - like a time lapse movie!

Imagine my horror to find fat green hornworm caterpillars eating the leaves of my evening primroses. But I resisted the urge to remove them - my garden is a habitat, after all - and my 8 year old daughter collected them and we grew them out in a jar to see what they would turn into.

Surprise! They were the larvae of the White-lined Sphinx moth. You see them darting like hummingbirds at dusk. The moths are the pollinators of the evening primrose (big white night-blooming flowers, duh!) How many millennia have the moths been pollinating the flowers, then laying their eggs on the leaves?

Leafcutter bees have been at work on my service berry leaves. The female bee cuts leaf disks, which she uses to build a nest in a small hole in a log. My native garden supports native insects to keep the ecosystem diverse.

This is a home-made native bee house (two by four with different sized holes drilled in it). Many wood-nesting native bees happily take to these nest boxes. They don't sting or bother you, but they do pollinate your garden. See how all the holes are filled with stuff? There's no vacancy!

Close up on the bee house. Remember the leaf cutter bees a few photos back? The holes stuffed with bits of cut leaf are where the leaf cutters are laying their eggs! Each hole has walled-off cells with a pollen ball and an egg. The baby bees grow, develop and pupate in there and emerge next summer.