YAKIMA, Wash. -- It isn’t difficult to get kids at Yakima’s McClure Elementary School to talk about their garden.
In fact, schoolchildren recently had so much to say about their nationally certified Schoolyard Habitat that there just wasn’t room to include all their ideas in a story, set to be published Saturday in the Yakima Herald-Republic and at www.yakimaherald.com.

So here are a few more vignettes and quotes about Bombard Gardens from the kids with the green thumbs in McClure’s garden, or habitat, club.

• Jacob Luten, 11, is a regular volunteer in the garden.
“It’s good for us to have it because we can learn stuff from it,” he says. For example, “This year, we went out to pick stuff — like rocks and leaves — for the ecosystems that we’re making.”
His favorite flower is the globe thistle. And his favorite subject is science. The fifth-grader also says he’s seen some neat creatures in the schoolyard habitat: “I’ve seen some really pretty butterflies, all different colors.”
And, “I saw a hummingbird once.”

• Adilene Huerta, also 11, wants to warn people not to walk in the garden.
Instead, she wants them — “especially the little kindergartners” — “to respect it and not be cutting out the roses or the plants.”
What else does the fifth-grader want people to know?
“My favorite insect is a ladybug.”

• “I think it’s special that we have a garden,” says fifth-grader Juan Cervantes, 10.
And his classmate, Guadalupe Alvares, also 10, agrees. “The garden is a pretty place, and we have to keep it clean,” she says.
Her favorite flower is a rose “because it smells good, and I like the shape of it.”

• Daisy Delgado’s favorite flower is, of course, a daisy.
The 9-year-old fourth-grader is another regular garden club volunteer. Why does she help?
“I like to make it a little bit better around here, a little bit prettier. And, I like to work in the garden.”

• Emiliano Mata, another 9-year-old fourth-grader, says the garden “makes our school nice.” He likes the red twig dogwood best because “red’s my favorite color.”

• Chelsie Wade, yet another 9-year-old fourth-grader, likes roses and volunteering in the garden.
“I like helping because sometimes you get certificates and it helps the garden when you dig the dead stuff out.”
She, too, cautions against stepping on the plants: “You never know, there could be a creature on them, and you might kill it.”
What kind of creatures has she seen in the garden?
“I’ve seen snails and worms and butterflies and spiders and bees.”

— Want to help? Bombard Gardens could use donations of seeds, “wood cookies,” and all things garden. To make memorial or other contributions, leave a message for Pat Bombard at the school at 509-573-1300.

-- Adriana Janovich