Conditional formatting based on numbered text

[Guest]

What is the best way to apply conditional formmating in the folloiwing case?

I have a column with validated text fields (users can choose one of
seventeen options - text that starts with a number 1 through 17). I want to
turn the cell red for cells that start with the numbers 1 through 5, yellow
for 6 through 11, and green for anything higher.

Any thoughts? Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[Biff]

Need more info!

If the first character in the string was always a single
digit this would be very easy. Are there spaces between
the numbers and the rest of the string? eg:

1 apples
7 grapes
17 pears

Biff