Nancy has been planting flowers like Impatiens along the sidewalk leading to our back patio – with mixed results. Often, the Impatiens got dug up by chipmunks and squirrels and sometimes succumbed to the summer’s heat. They needed water practically every day.
This year, she planted Zinnias and they are loving life. The lovely flowers add lots of beauty to the yard as well as seeds for the birds.
Zinnias are annuals, a shrub-like flower native primarily to North America. Most species have upright stems, but some have a lax habit with spreading stems that mound over the surface of the ground. They typically range in height from a half-foot to about 36-inches but some of ours are nearing shoulder height. Zinnias can be white, chartreuse, yellow, orange, red, purple, or lilac. Ours are a brilliant assortment of colors.
I think my yard is the Mecca for finches – both goldfinches and house finches. I have dozens and dozens of the colorful little birds. They come to my feeder of sunflower chips and to the hanging thistle feeder, and they relish the small seeds from Nancy’s flowers. In addition to the zinnia border, we have a large patch of Black-eyed Susans and Cone Flowers (both in the sunflower family), perennials that are spreading and provide lots of seeds for the finches.
Another great plant for our backyard wildlife is our stand of mountain mint, a sweet-smelling plant that draws pollinators by the dozens.
It’s nice to have things which both beautify your yard and are beneficial to wildlife.
