When planning our spring- and summer-blooming flowers, we tend to choose plants by color and size. White mid-size hydrangeas as a border, red low-growing petunias along the front entry, a small burgundy-leaved Japanese maple as a focal point, etc. This spring when visiting the nursery, consider including perennials and annual plants that provide food or habitat for birds, butterflies and bees on your list. California native plants should be on that list since they attract, feed and shelter and help protect our native California species and most are drought-tolerant.

Gardens that provide food and shelter all year long will be filled with movement, sound and song all year long. Spring-blooming trees such as dogwood and redbuds attract bee species that appear in early spring. A garden that contains plants that produce berries in winter (nandina, manzanita, rhapholepsis) will feed migrating Oregon juncoes and other bird species during the cold months. Later summer-booming plants with tubular flowers (penstemon, salvias, honeysuckle, California fuschia) provide nectar for hummingbirds, bees and butterflies from May until the first frost in November. The umbrella-shaped flowers of common yarrow feed many types of native bees throughout the summer and into winter. Many bee species, especially the big slow-moving, black carpenter bees and miner bees, seem to enjoy rolling around in the easily available pollen in flowers with open centers (echinacea, coreopsis, zinnias) that continue to bloom during the hottest summer months.

Some plants not only provide food, but they also act as host plants for beautiful butterfly caterpillars and the larvae of beneficial insects or as shelter for nesting birds. Monarch butterflies lay their eggs on narrowleaf milkweed and lady beetles metamorphose from ugly black and orange larvae to mature lady beetles while hidden in the gray fronds of artemisia or under the white umbrella flowers of Queen Anne's lace. The dense foliage of manzanita, toyon and cotoneaster provide protection for small birds from larger predators.

The Clovis Botanical Garden's spring festival is next Saturday, March 23, from 9 a.m to 2 p.m at 945 N. Clovis Ave. The plantings in the garden feature California natives, drought-tolerant plants and plants that attract bees, butterflies and birds. The experts on hand will be teaching about water-wise gardening. Drought-tolerant plants, including California natives, will be on sale. Visit with the Clovis Animal Shelter, Fresno Wildlife Rescue and other family friendly exhibitors. Admission is $5, free to botanical garden members. For more information and lunch reservations, contact Georgia Porcella, 287-2320.