Look up books and guides for native plants in your area. Get as hyper-local as you can for what species to leave be, weed, or plant. Ideally in that order: it’s best to start by encouraging what’s already there by removing its nonnative competitors. If your garden is just a desert of monoculture mowed grass, exciting news: you get to kill your lawn! Check out all the fun ways you can do so here: https://weedcut-new.ipm.ucanr.edu/management-practices/#non-chemical California-specific resource, but almost all of these methods will also work elsewhere. This can be a fun way to bring people from the community into your garden, especially if you offer food and drinks.

If you have established bird feeders in your yard you could host bird watching social hours. An elevated platform for peanuts/corn/mealworms, a seed feeder, and a suet feeder should attract a wide variety no matter where you are. Don’t be discouraged if the birds take a while to notice them, just keep the feeders clean and free of mold or pests.

In that vein, there are lots of social things you could do in a garden! Gatherings for mending/repair, handcrafts, creative reuse art, and general wellbeing activities like nature journaling are all things you could do to bring people in and use it as a community space.