Parent can't hold back excitement after curious toddler makes unexpected discovery in yard: 'I guess she spotted this'

Children are natural learners who tend to be endlessly curious about the world around them, as a recent post about native foliage on Reddit's r/NativePlantGardening demonstrated adorably.

"My 3.5-year-old found a new (to us) native in our yard," the original poster announced, sharing a photograph of their daughter's tiny hand clutching a flower stem.

"My husband was pushing her around the yard in her toy truck, and I guess she spotted this and snagged it," the user continued, before identifying the picked flower. 

"Northeastern Penstemon! I'm bummed that she picked it, but … I get so excited when we find new natives on the property," they said.

Penstemon is a popular choice for rewilding green spaces, per Harvard Museums of Science & Culture, in part because it's beloved by pollinators — a vital element of the ecosystem and food chain.

The plant "brings pollinator activity and subtle elegance to native plantings," Rewild Alabama said in a recent Facebook post. 

In addition to supporting pollinators, upgrading your yard and transitioning away from a monoculture lawn saves money and time, drastically reducing the need for resources like water and often cutting down on time spent mowing and maintaining a yard.

Broadly, the post's submitter was effusive about her family's ongoing efforts to rewild their yard. Although her young daughter was unable to identify where the stem was picked, it appeared to come from a spot the user and their spouse "seeded with natives a couple of years ago."

On the Reddit thread, users swapped stories about their experiences upgrading to a natural lawn, including unexpected finds like the original poster's. 

"I found a Meadow Evening Primrose in my garden yesterday that I know I didn't plant! Very exciting," a fellow Redditor enthused. 

If you have a lawn, what aspect of it do you value most? The way it looks 🤩 The way my family uses it 👪 It's enjoyable to mow 😎 It's cheap to maintain 💰 Click your choice to see results and speak your mind.

"These are some of my favorite flowers. I bought some years ago, and now I've got clumps growing all over the place," another replied. "They are the fairy princesses of my garden."

As for the unfortunately picked bloom, one user had some useful advice.

"Might be able to slice it up into two-inch chunks and start them back up with root growth hormone," they proposed.

Another lauded the original poster's parenting. "Start 'em young! How exciting," they wrote.

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