I can't tell if I am doing something special to help nature create a real ecosystem in my garden. All I do is trying to mimic what I know about nature. Diversity is the keyword. Diversity in levels: trees, shrubs, climbers, herbs, ground-covering plants (living mulch); and because everything was flat here, I created diversity in ground-levels (herb-spiral, Hugelkultur). Diversity in wet and dry parts (leading the rainwater to a small pond with overflow), in shaded, less shaded and sunny parts, in parts with stones/bricks, with dead wood or with only soil.
I have to learn a lot more about plant guilds. I try to create a polyculture, but some of the plants I put together do not seem to like eachother. I don't know about the invisible part of the ecosystem (but the algae are probably in the pond and the fungi in the dead wood).
I like gettin more and more 'wildlife' animals in my garden. There are toads now, at least one frog, bees and other buzzing insects in a wide variety, beetles, many different snails and slugs (First I wanted them to leave, but I understand they are part of the ecosystem) and birds. I hope there's a hedgehog, but they are such elusive animals.
My garden is small, about 8x8,5 meters. That's the front yard. There's a back yard too, about the same size, but with much less sunlight. I am still figuring out what to do. I do not design all at once, I prefer 'baby steps'.
part of the garden with herb spiral, raspberries and red currants. This is the part where I started applying permaculture principles 2 1/2 years ago.