For people who want to grow more food with less work. 🌱 This is my weekly newsletter loved by 38,000+ subscribers—here's what one of them had to say: "These are not the regular run-of-the-mill garden-based emails. You actually touch on more unusual tidbits that encourage me to keep growing and learning."
attract more hummingbirds (and beneficial bugs) with these flowers 🌸
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Of all the pollinators that visit my garden, hummingbirds might just be my favorite. In Central Oregon, I see a lot of Rufous, Anna's, and Calliope hummingbirds (I love them so much that I also wrote a full guide to identifying hummingbirds all over the country). I even see them in winter occasionally but as soon as it warms up, many more show up and wander the yard in search of nectar. While they'll usually go for nearly any flower that's in bloom, hummingbirds definitely have a preference in order to keep returning: flowers that have plenty of nectar, stand alone or grow in loose clusters, and are tubular in shape—shapes that perfectly match their long, slender beaks. The good thing about planting more hummingbird-friendly flowers is that many of them are also attractive to bees, butterflies, and other pollinators, not to mention all the beneficial insects you want to keep around your yard to help with aphids, mites, and other pests. A lot of these beneficials aren't known by name, and they're usually highly underestimated, but they do important work—often unseen. So if you have a vegetable garden going this year, be sure to grow lots of flowers on the fringes of your beds! Not only will they attract the kinds of bugs you want, they'll also mulch the soil and keep it healthy. Seasonal tipsI usually spend Mother's Day at a local nursery (I can't help it, it's a total treat for me! 🌼) but this past weekend, I was at a local children's festival with my girls—not as attendees, but as vendors. You see, they love to make slime while I, on the other hand, don't love it. 😅 So I thought it'd be fun to turn their hobby into something that would be worth the mess at home, and a business idea was born. They spent 2 days making 2 gallons of cloud slime (yes, it's a thing) for their custom slime bar, and it was a hit! My kids sold 120 containers of slime in 4 hours and I cannot belieeeve how well they did! They packaged all the slime (with help from mom and dad), made the signs, set up their booth, did all the talking, handled the money and were nonstop selling during the festival. We treated this like a real business, where they had to take out a loan from the bank of mom 😆 (with interest, of course), deduct taxes for the government (also mom), pay employee wages (a friend from school), and account for unsold inventory. I'm so proud of my little entrepreneurs (who are 10 and 6) and it was the perfect Mother's Day gift to watch them in action. 🥰 (And thankfully, our kitchen survived all that slime.) P.S. Plant these flowers to attract lots of hummingbirds to your garden. P.P.S. Get 10% off with code "NatureHillsGrow" when you order your favorite flowering plants from Nature Hills. |
Garden Betty
For people who want to grow more food with less work. 🌱 This is my weekly newsletter loved by 38,000+ subscribers—here's what one of them had to say: "These are not the regular run-of-the-mill garden-based emails. You actually touch on more unusual tidbits that encourage me to keep growing and learning."