Theme gardens add colorful excitement to landscape

By Kathy Hatfield
Gardening Columnist

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The challenges and rewards of growing flowers is reason enough to pursue the activity, but it's always a pleasure to take gardening to a new level. Wouldn't it be wonderful to enjoy a water-efficient garden that is not only beautiful, but also attracts hummingbirds and butterflies, or supplies cut flowers, or entices children to explore it! This month, I'll focus on these three theme gardens and give you ideas for plants well suited to each and to our dry conditions. Look for more theme garden ideas in the June issue.

Butterflies, hummingbirds

We are blessed with an abundance of colorful butterflies and hummingbirds in northern Colorado. It's easy to create a garden especially for them. It can be small--in fact, even window boxes and hanging baskets planted with the appropriate material will attract these beauties. Most importantly, refrain from using pesticides, even organic ones, if you are planting for butterflies and hummingbirds.

For butterflies, plenty of sunshine is essential. Being cold-blooded, a butterfly will bask in the sun, raising its body temperature so it will be able to fly. Consequently, the plants they prefer are sun-worshippers also. Butterflies are able to distinguish colors and prefer yellow, white, pink and purple flowers, but they will visit other colors of flowers that have a good nectar supply. A group of their preferred flowers will do a better job of attracting butterflies than one or two of a kind.

Hummingbirds visit many different colors of flowers, but are most attracted to reds and oranges. With their long tongues they can reach deep into funnel-shaped or tubular flowers in search of nectar. The nectar in these flowers provides some of the many calories these high-energy creatures need to function. But they cannot survive on nectar alone, so often capture insects or spiders to supplement their diet. Many of the same flowers that attract butterflies will attract hummingbirds. A few of these nectar plants that will grow in our area are listed here, but the list is not at all exhaustive.

• Agastache - giant hyssop
• Asclepias tuberosa - butterfly weed
• Dianthus - pinks
• Echinops ritro - globe thistle
• Hemerocallis - daylily
• Iris
• Liatris punctata - gayfeather
• Mirabilis multiflora - four o'clock
• Penstemon - beardtongues
• Salvia - sage
• Verbena - vervain

Cutting garden

Like the flowers for a butterfly or hummingbird garden, most flowers for a cutting garden are sun lovers. Ideally, the garden should get about six hours of sun per day. The area need not be large; 60 square feet will give you ample flowers for cutting, but smaller areas and even containers may be used. Most flowers benefit from amended soil, so tilling in some compost before you begin to plant is a good idea. If yours will be strictly a cutting garden, and appearance of the garden is not critical, maintenance and harvest are easiest if flowers are planted in rows with mulched paths between them. Plant several different kinds so you will have a variety of flowers all season long.

Some of the best flowers for a drought-tolerant cutting garden are the following:

• Achillea - yarrow
• Anthemis tinctoria - golden marguerite
• Celosia - cockscomb
• Centaurea cyanus - bachelor button or cornflower
• Cosmos
• Echinacea - purple coneflower
• Gaillardia - blanketflower
• Gypsophila paniculata - baby's breath
• Helianthus - sunflower (pollenless varieties available)
• Limonium latifolium - sea lavender
• Rudbeckia hirta - gloriosa daisy
• Solidago - goldenrod

Children's garden

To create a garden special to children, plan it around a theme that has meaning for them. There are limitless possibilities. The theme could be a favorite book or character; a Peter Rabbit garden, for example, might include the flowers and vegetables of Mr. McGregor's garden. For young kids learning their ABCs, try an alphabet garden with 26 different plants, the common or botanical name of each representing a letter of the alphabet. Or plant wedge-shaped sections of peppers, tomatoes, onions, garlic and more, so that together they form a giant pizza. A rainbow garden would include flowers of many different colors, but preferably of similar heights, in an arc-shaped garden. The colors of the flowers could even be arranged to correspond to the visible spectrum of light: red-orange-yellow-green-blue-indigo-violet.

If you'd like to try a more traditional garden, try planting kid-sized produce. Tiny cherry tomatoes, miniature pumpkins, or cornichon-sized cucumbers are just right for little fingers. The opposite extreme, giant pumpkins, huge sunflowers, even overgrown zucchini, are always exciting when kids can watch them grow.

There are lots of nontraditional vegetables available now. Your children might enjoy multicolored 'Easter egg' radishes, purple beans that turn green when cooked, orange or white tomatoes, lavender or chocolate-colored sweet peppers, purple or green cauliflower, the almost fluorescent colors of 'Bright Lights' Swiss chard - the list is endless.

In a vegetable garden, kid-sized structures add to the fun. Construct a bamboo tepee as support for pole beans planted around its base. Leave one side open so kids can crawl inside. Or make a wire tunnel framework for climbing fragrant sweet peas. Keeping the garden small with mulched paths will make for easier maintenance.

Here are a few dryland choices with unique characteristics that make a fun sensory garden for kids.

• Agastache (hyssop) - root beer, bubble gum and licorice-scented varieties
• Antennaria (Pussytoes) - furry flower heads reflect their common name
• Berlandiera lyrata (chocolate flower) - not edible, but smells like milk chocolate
• Calendula (pot marigolds) - self-sowing, easy to grow, edible, and make great cut flowers
• Echinops (globe thistle) - flower and seed heads with unique texture, prickly, but not sharp
• Eschscholzia californica (California poppy) - papery thin petals in a wide range of colors
• Helianthus (sunflower) - scratchy leaves, velvety petals, and prickly seed heads make them a study in textures
• Lavandula (lavender) - wonderful scent when its leaves are crushed
• Platycodon grandiflorus (balloon flower) - flower buds that look like dainty balloons
• Salvia argentea (silver sage) - has furry soft leaves, perfect for children to pet

For more information, contact local garden centers, gardening web sites, CSU Cooperative Extension and the public library.