An urban garden like my family’s is a good place to start. It’s the kind of place that already bears little resemblance to what might have existed before humans came along. Nearby parking lots absorb heat, while buildings cast shade, moderating temperature swings. Water flows along curbs and down drains. Even the soil is different; concrete sidewalks neutralize acidity, encouraging plants that wouldn’t grow here otherwise. New communities of species arise in these conditions.

One study conducted in Davis, Calif., found that 29 of 32 native butterflies in that city breed on nonnative plants. Thirteen of these butterfly species have no native host plants in the city; they persist there because nonnative plants support them. If we are seeking lessons about ecological resilience in a time of deep and unsettling change, the place to look is right outside our door.

In this microenvironment, extreme gardening means making the yard hospitable for as many species as possible, without worrying so much about whether they originally belonged here or not. I used to think that tearing out turf and making room for native species like purple coneflower and switchgrass was the best thing I could do. But things aren’t that simple anymore. It doesn’t make sense to think in terms of native and nonnative when the local weather vacillates so abruptly. A resilient garden is a diverse garden.

We already face the peculiar irony of species that are disappearing across their native range but flourishing outside it, like the European rabbit, which is in trouble in its native habitat on the Iberian Peninsula of Spain and Portugal, but considered a pest in Australia. The peregrine falcon, which disappeared from the rugged cliffs of the eastern United States in the mid-1960s because of the effects of the pesticide DDT, is thriving today partly because of its affinity for nesting on bridges and buildings in our cities. This phenomenon of species movement and adaptation is likely to become commonplace as the climate changes.

Creating a resilient garden means paying attention to the life histories of individual species and how they interact with others in the community. What benefits, like nectar or shelter, do they provide? Are they likely to crowd out other species? What kind of help do they need from us to withstand wild fluctuations in temperature? A gardener who asks these kinds of questions mixes things up, leaving some parts of the yard untouched while weeding and enriching the soil in others.