Gardening for hummingbirds
Most plants with showy, tube-shaped, nectar-bearing flowers – especially those that are bright red, pink, orange, or yellow – will draw hummingbirds to your garden. Here’s a list that includes flowers that bloom early and some that bloom late in summer for a season of color. There are flowers, vines, shrubs and trees.
Flowers- bee balm, bergamot, bergena, butterfly weed, cleome, columbine, coral bells, delphinium, evening primrose, four o’clock, foxglove, fuschia, geranium, gladiolus, hibiscus, impatiens, jewelweed, lilies, nasturtium, nicotiana, petunia, phlox, salvia, snapdragons, and zinnia.
Wildflowers include -cardinal flower and trumpet creeper, scarlet paintbrush, columbine, red-flowering currant, lobelia, monkey flowers, prickly pear, scarlet passion flower, wild pinks and yucca.
Vines - flame vine, honeysuckle, morning glory, scarlet runner beans
Shrubs -azalea, coralberry, flowering quince, honeysuckle, lilac, rhododendron, weigela
Trees -Chinaberry, flowering crabapple, hawthorn, locust, mimosa, tulip tree. Trees with dense foliage – evergreens, deciduous trees and shrubs – may entice hummers to nest in your yard.
Tips and Tidbits - Worldwide, there are 320 species of hummingbirds. Of the 15 North American species, only the ruby-throated is commonly found east of the Mississippi River.
On its migration from Central America in winter to North America in spring, the ruby-throated hummingbird may travel 2,000 miles and cross the Gulf of Mexico.
Some hummingbirds can fly up to 60 miles an hour, but they aren’t the fastest birds in the sky. One Asian swift can zoom along at nearly 220 miles an hour, and the peregrine falcon attains speeds close to 200 miles an hour.
Spiders, ants, gnats, fruit flies, and other small insects and larvae provide protein for many hummingbirds.
Nineteenth-century naturalist John James Audubon described hummingbirds as a “glittering fragment of the rainbow.”
You should plant a garden with a long season of overlapping bloom, including plants such as the petunia, annual red salvia, autumn sage and shrimp plants, or the firebush.
You should plant flowers and plants which are native to your area of the country. You can find out information concerning the specific plants that grown in your area and attract hummingbirds by talking with someone from a plant nursery that is located where you live.
Your flower garden should have areas of sun, partial sun, and shade. If the area of your yard where you want to create the hummingbird habitat is sunny most of the day, then you need to plant trees and shrubs. If the area is entirely in the shade, you will want to open up the area to let large patches of sunlight in. Having areas that allow both sun and shade is necessary to grow a wide variety of plants.
You want your flower garden to consist of many levels of vegetation. The area should have some tall trees, some medium-height trees, some flowers, some grassy areas, as well as some shrubs. These different levels will provide the hummingbirds a variety of choices of where to feed or where to perch to rest or roost.
You want to plant lots of flowers including those that are known to attract hummingbirds as well as others. You should select a variety of flowers that will bloom at different times, because there will always be something flowering. The flowers will serve two very important purposes: they will provide a source of nectar for the hummingbirds, and they will also attract insects on which the birds will feed.
It is also important for your flower garden to have a source of water available for the hummingbirds. One way to do this is by having a birdbath available. The birdbath should have a very shallow water depth to allow the birds to stand in the water if they choose to do so. Adding some small flat rocks to the birdbath will create different water depths within the birdbath.
Having a wide variety of plants will provide the female hummingbird a wide variety of nesting materials from which to choose.
Your hummingbird garden should also contain some perches so the hummingbirds can survey the territory. You might want to create some perches that give the birds a good view over the flowers.
Pesticides should never be used in a hummingbird garden! The hummingbird can ingest the pesticide while feeding on insects and spiders.