I run a school garden program where the first rule is that kids get to pick the flowers. We work with 1,500 pre school to fourth graders and the first thing they learn about gardening is how to cut a flower so it will encourage new growth. Kid's safety scissors work just fine for most plants.

Roberta

Zinnias are good plants for that. Although you have to cut them. :) the more you cut the more flowers you get

Snow-in-summer would be wonderful. You may also want to check out Johnny jump up, an annual that reliably comes back year after year.

Supannee
Ankrara's Hobby Corner

Bleeding hearts are always a favorite with kids.

I have the same situation! My 4-yr-old daughter loves to pick the flowers, but we've lost a few plants this way. I made a garden just for her, and am trying to put in plants for picking. After dandelions, she loves picking flowers off my geranium plant. This has been the best so far. It's one of the perennial kinds, covered in bright reddish-violet flowers. Easy to pick (no long stems and doesn't last in a vase but that's not the point!). And it blooms more the more she picks. Also, try these:

- coral bells (heuchera). You actually get a bit of stem with these, too.
- daylily (reblooming kind, i.e., 'Happy Returns) - a little harder to pick, but then again, she just pops the flower off, doesn't take the stem.
- dianthus has been nice although sometimes a little root comes out
- sedum, such as 'Autumn Joy' (blooms in fall, no rebloom, but if you have enough plants it doesn't matter).
- anemone sylvestris (although it doesn't rebloom)
- daffodils
- forget-me-nots (reseeding annual, kind of a weed which of course makes it perfect for picking!)

I'm sure there are loads out there. I've been looking for a while. I also planted her some pyrethrum, which only blooms in the spring. I think she did OK with that, anyway none of the roots came up and she loved the colors.

Great thread!
Joann

Joann,
Had to laugh at the daylilies. I had forgotten how much he enjoyed them last year. He liked the fat yellow daylily buds and would pick all the "bananas" he could find.
He's been picking the johnny jump ups and the dianthus, but always gets some root. I tried to teach him to deadhead, but he doesn't like to pick the "dirty" flowers.

Plain oxeye daisy, the wild one you see in the fields, is good for picking. If you collect and scatter seed in your garden, you'll have them next year. Under cultivated conditions, the plants quite big and throw hundreds of flowers.

I grow yellow cosmos and these would be fun for children to pick. They have thin stems and might need some children's scissors, but grow so prolifically and reseed so easily, it wouldn't matter if he pulled a plant or two.