I recently had an immense amount of fun talking about growing food in urban spaces and attracting birds, bees, and butterflies at Eat Real Fest in Los Angeles. For part of my demonstration, I created a special wildlife-friendly pallet garden with plants donated by Proven Winners. I think it turned out really cool!
If you’d like to make a pallet garden designed to provide nectar and pollen for hummingbirds, butterflies, and honeybees (which are all important pollinators for edible plants), here are the plants I used:
Ageratum ‘Artist Purple’ (Floss Flower)
Ageratum is a really neat and unusual looking flower. The small flowers look like fuzzy buttons and are held in clusters practically covering the plant. It is a great plant to attract butterflies and hummingbirds. Specifically, Soldier Butterflies, Monarchs, Queens, Fritillaries, among others. Not to mention that bees will be sure to stop by.
Lantana ‘Luscious Lemonade’
Lantana is such a great plant. There is pretty much no amount of heat that is too much for them. They are also pretty drought tolerant. And those are just lantana’s practical aspects. Lantana also smells nice, and attracts bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds.
Petunia ‘ Supertunia Citrus’
Supertunias don’t ask for much. Give them water and fertilizer and they will provide waves of happy flowers that butterflies and even hummingbirds enjoy visiting.
Cleome ‘Spirit’ (Appleblossom)
These delicate, pink and white flowers attract butterflies and hummingbirds. They add height and elegant beauty to a wildlife garden.
Zinnia
Zinnias are a great plant for attracting bees. Their flowers lustily display their pollen and nectar in the center of brightly colored flowers.
Layout
If you’d like to arrange your plants exactly as I did, this is a rough sketch (emphasis on “rough”) of the placement of plants in the pallet:
If you’d like detailed instructions on how to prepare and plant the pallet, refer to these instructions.
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Many thanks to Proven Winners for donating the plants for this project. To read more about my product donation/review policy, click here.
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{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
Nice Fern!
I especially love the supertunias! Proven Winners has such a great variety of petunias that do well in my warm Florida climate… I especially like their “Pretty Much Picasso” myself. The pallet garden looks superb by the way.
Supertunias are a fav of mine too!
Steve, I live in Orlando, Florida. Thank you for the “heads up!” I will look for the supertunias and Pretty Much Picasso, too.
Cute pix, Fern, and great ideas!
You have so many unique tips and ideas! Thank you! We follow your updates in Twitter. Love, April and Jacque
Thanks! Glad you like LOTB.
That’s really great! I love the use of the pallet. And the chocice of flowers too! The lantanas take me back to my childhood summer holidays in the Algarve, south of Portugal. There were lantanas everywhere!
I was kind of bummed that so many of the lantana flowers were ripped off by the wind on the way over. Though they will regrow quickly.
Beautiful flowers! I’m sure the bees and butterflies can’t resist those lovely flowers. Thanks for sharing your ideas here, I really appreciate it.
Fern (you’re kidding, right?)
Take a look at the Roman “hortus”, from whence all kitchen gardens came. The Latin is obvious, and there is little written about them; I found a small private publication of a thesis or dissertation from a Tulane grad student.
My point is that given your skill and interest, it shouldn’t be hard to tie your work back to the classic expression of your work. I am not sure of the state of the Roman economy, but intuition tells me that our situations are very similar, albeit a couple of thousand years apart.
No, I’m not kidding about my name. The rest of your comment doesn’t make any sense to me. Could you explain why you’re talking about Latin meanings of botanical words, Tulane grad student theses, and the economy of ancient empires?
Loving that Floss Flower! This is a great addition to your earlier fabulous and famous Pallet Garden post. I’d love to see how this could work indoors too. Thanks for another great share!
Hello! Any advice for attracting wildlife to a fully shaded balcony garden in Phoenix AZ? Any ideas would be great! Thank you in advance
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