Fortunately, our daughter, Elise, takes after her mom and loves helping with the gardening, especially the watering part. We decided to make a kid-friendly garden this spring by planting flowers that attract hummingbirds and butterflies. In making plant selections, I enlisted the assistance Becky Eterno, perennials manager at the Flower Bin garden center in Longmont. Hummingbirds are lured mainly by bright red, pink and orange trumpet shaped flowers. Eterno named fuchsias, penstemons, salvias and trumpet vines as examples of flowers that attract hummingbirds.
Butterflies have different criteria for their favorite flowers.
They like to sit on them and eat. Shasta daisies, cosmos, snapdragons, zinnias and scabiosas are among butterflies' favorites. They helped with a grueling 5 minutes of weeding, followed by a well-deserved watermelon break. They devoured their watermelon slices, saved the seeds, and then planted the seeds in hopes of soon having some more watermelon to eat. They got so covered in watermelon and dirt in the process that only enthusiastic splashing around in the plastic kiddy pool could salvage the bunch.