It is doing good. Not like a manicured English garden, but more like a 5 year old let loose with his crayons. I see a lot of birds and insects. A lot of birds have made a home around the trees in the yard. I love having the birds around except when they let loose with the dawn chorus ;-).
The deer pressure was immense, so I finally broke down and put in a fence. Now, I just have a rabbit problem ;-)
As the saying goes, "The first year the garden sleeps, then next year it creeps and then it leaps". It sort of makes sense in putting in roots etc. I am in start of year 3, so this summer I will eagerly wait to see how it leaps.
I have also seen major collateral help to my kitchen garden due to my pollinator native garden. My kitchen garden has no problems being pollinated, while my neighbors with insect free yards complain about their kitchen gardens not producing. I wonder if they realize that their frequent pesticide applications on their lawn and mosquito treatments they set up every few weeks has an impact on their kitchen garden?
For your garden, you can find a native plant group/exchange on Facebook. I got all of my plants that way. It is a little slower process and limits you to what others are giving.
I would suggest putting in a water source for birds. For the insects/butterflies/pollinators, put in a puddling area. A couple of big rocks around the puddling area will give a place for butterflies to bask in the sun.
Be worried about extremely aggressive plants. Someone gave me Canada goldenrod and that might be something that I will have to fight to prevent it from taking over. I wish I had done my research, there are varieties of goldenrod which are not as aggressive as Canada goldenrod.
Other plants (mountain Mint) do not have showy flowers, but is a magnet for pollinators. They do spread, but I think we can keep it under control. Another star is Anise Hyssop. Unlike mountain Mint, it has beautiful flowers and the pollinators love it.
For beauty, I've got black eyed susans, cone flowers and Liatris. Also seem to be getting native daisies(fleabane?) come up on their own .
I need to add something to attract hummingbirds. I am fascinated by those tiny birds. I am thinking about lonicera sempervirens (coral honeysuckle). I already have cardinal flowers and bee balm. The male hummingbirds are very territorial, so I probably need to make two separate areas, not in line of sight from each other.
I'll add a photo or two in a couple of months. Best of luck with your native garden.
ETA: Adding a 6-8 inch layer of wood chips on the ground was fantastic. The awful clay soil that I started with has been transformed to beautiful black soil to a depth of at least 6 inches. Every shovelful is full of worms. The soil has gone from sterile, to full of life.
