Hummingbird plants?

Question

I've seen hummingbirds in my yard twice just recently. I know I can look up on the net what plants they like, but I would like some info from y'all. Namely what plants do they seem to prefer, despite what the published info states. This is only the fourth time in my life that I've seen one, and I want to invite them into my yard.

Answer 1

http://www.hummingbirdsociety.org/photogallery/photogallery.asp This is Hummingbird 101 and this is a greaaaaaaat site: http://www.hummingbirdsociety.org/HB101/HB101.asp
Go to the click on that says ATTRACTING HUMMINGBIRDS; I have four different kinds that frequent our home foraging for nectar! Good luck; they're neat to watch.

Answer 2

Purchase a Hummingbird feeder and some powdered food. you just need to follow the instructions and add the proper amount of water to the powder. Unless you have a feeder the chances are you will not see them. When you have a feeder there will be more than you thought. My Hummingbirds like the Hibiscus plants also. I have those around my pool. They are wonderful to watch. I live in TN and if the temps stay in the mid 60's to 70's in the daytime I have seen then as late as Nov.

Answer 3

Hummingbirds like small cone or trumpet shaped flowers like those found on the honeysuckle.
Plants that Attract Hummingbirds:
Azalea, Bee Balm (Monarda), Butterfly Bush (Buddleia), Canna, Cardinal Flower, Columbine, Coral Bells, Flame Acanthus, Flowering Quince, Lantana, Manzanita, Mimosa, Turk's Cap, Weigela, Delphinium, Hollyhock, Catawba Rhododendron, Rose of Sharon, Four O'Clocks, Foxglove, Hosta, Hummingbird Mint (Agastache), Little Cigar, Lupine, Penstemon, Yucca

Annuals: Beard Tongue, Firespike, Fuchsia, Impatiens, Jacobiana, Jewelweed, Petunia, Various Salvia species, Shrimp Plant

Vines: Trumpet Vine and Trumpet Honeysuckle
Coral Honeysuckle, Cypress Vine, Morning Glory
Scarlet Runner Bean, Trumpet Creeper
http://landscaping.about.com/cs/forthebirds/a/hummingbirds.htm

Hummingbird forum:
Cypress Vine & Cardinal Climbers
http://www.network54.com/Forum/439743/thread/1182699986/last-1183231007/Cardinal+Climber+or+Cypress+Vine+-+Which+one+to+choose-

Since hummers have virtually no sense of smell, the flowers that attract them tend to have little or no fragrance, but they are brightly colored, apparently directing their resources instead toward high visibility and nectar production.

If you hang a feeder, sooner or later a hummingbird will come to investigate.
http://www.hummingbirds.net/attract.html
It'll get the hummingbirds' attention if you decorate your feeder with red or orange surveyor's tape. It is thought that hummers are sensitive to ultraviolet light, which these fluorescent tapes reflect in abundance.

Here's info about what to put into your feeder & how to maintain it:
http://www.hummingbirds.net/feeders.html

In addition to food sources, convenient perching opportunities will make your yard more hospitable to hummingbirds, since they spend around 80% of their time sitting on twigs, leaf stems, clotheslines, etc., between feeding forays and sorties against trespassing rivals.
Shrub plants can be massed in a border to form sheltered areas for hummingbirds. Breaking up a large flat expanse is an important consideration -- not only for landscape design in general, but particularly when trying to attract birds.

Hummingbirds get the energy from flower nectar and the sugar water they find at feeders. For protein and other nutrients, they eat soft-bodied insects and spiders, therefore, some people suggest leaving overripe fruit or banana peels near the feeders to attract flies for the hummers :) LOL

They began moving south as early as July but it takes several months for the birds to begin to reach the southern U.S. The feeders are left up at least three weeks after seeing your last bird.
http://www.birds-n-garden.com/how_to_attract_hummingbirds.html

Good luck! Hope this helps.

Answer 4

Hummingbirds are truly fascinated in the colour pink. Petunias, impatiens, and the different plant with a pink or wonderful pink bud on this is going to charm to hummingbirds. in case you like an exceedingly sturdy deal, pass to the national Arbor Day beginning up's internet internet site and look at in for his or her $10 club. you will get 10 trees with club, and that they've a particular kit which will charm to all styles of songbirds on your belongings. you additionally can get hummingbird feeders (to coax them on your place speedier than your flowering pants will). they are truly inexpensive (around $10 for a plastic one), and the nectar is fairly person-friendly to mixture. we've approximately 5 hummingbirds that stay in our trees and feed off of the vegetation and feeders on our front porch, and till a pair of months in the past (as quickly as we added the vegetation and feeders) we would possibly in no way seen one. they are truly neat to visual exhibit unit.

Answer 5

Have I got a vine for you! It is called a cypress vine, kin to the cardinal vine. It blooms beautiful, deep red blooms with a light cypress like leaf. It is a really light vine that is easy to control. I have it located on my porch and around my mailbox. At sunset, there is always a cloud of hummers fighting for the blooms. The seeds are also easy to harvest so you will have a never ending supply once it gets going! Good Luck!

Answer 6

Most published info on what flowers they like to eat is pretty good, and all the suggestions I've seen above are good. Myself, I like fuchsias, and I think it's fun to see them come at them from below and stick their heads in as they hover. I live in an area where it's possible to have four kinds of hummers, and they each might prefer their own kinds of flowers, but they'll try anything in a pinch, even flowers you wouldn't think a hummingbird would go for at all.

One thing you can do to go the extra mile to draw them in, is, get yourself a feeder. (You can fold scrap hardware cloth over a jar of 1/4 sugar to boiled-and-cooled water inside a larger pan or jar of water to act as an ant moat if that's all you can afford). That way, when whatever you have planted isn't in bloom or has too few flowers to get them to hang out as long as you'd like, they'll still be around. My garden is chockfull of hummingbird plants, but they still visit my feeder, too.

Hummingbirds are *very* territorial. If your neck of the woods is simply not likely to have many of them around at any one time, a single hummingbird can succesfully monopolize a single plant or feeder. Even though it may be living full-time in your yard, they do fly fast and tend to be most active at dawn and dusk so you simply may not see it. So one way to see more hummingbirds more, and to get more to hang out is to have plants or feeders in two different locations.

Another thing is that not all hummingbirds just eat nectar (although that's a big-most of what they-all eat). They also eat small gnats and other no-see-ums. If you ever see one zipping in small short spurts in mid-air above a sun-patch, that's what it's doing. So another way to get them to hang out longer that isn't much in the books because it's very indirect, is to stay as organic as possible so that there are those kind of snacks around.

Answer 7

Don't know where you live, but they are probably migrating right now. They love the color red, petunias, or any brightly colored flower. Get a hummingbird feeder and some premixed food. They are so much fun to watch. Enjoy!!

Answer 8

My Dad planted some Bee Baum at our house in New Hampshire. The hummers came. They were all the Ruby Throats, the only one indigenous to NH.

Here's a picture I found:
http://faculty.ncwc.edu/Ddaley/JPEGS/Bee%20Baum.jpg

Answer 9

They seem to be particularly fond of the humming bird vine which is commonly known as Trumpet vine.
http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?_adv_prop=image&fr=yfp-t-471&va=trumpet+vines&sz=all
If you have a location that you don't mind giving up the the trumpet vine then it is definately worth the trouble of keeping it in control. I have one outside my living room window and I see humming birds visiting the vine all the time.

Answer 10

I planted BeeBalm (which is an herb) and brought some in with those -- this is a perrenial flower with large bright red flowers.
I know they also like pineapple sage (this also has bright reddish orange tulip shaped flowers) -- this is a woody type shrub/herb.