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9 Easy Care Plants That Attract Hummingbirds

Looking for ways to attract hummingbirds to your garden? Wait until you see plants that attract hummingbirds in this week’s garden tour.

Hummingbirds are such beautiful creatures, aren’t they?

I love to watch them zip about among my garden flowers.

When I first designed my front yard cottage garden, I researched hummingbird and butterfly attracting plants so that I could entice lots of pollinators to the yard.

Thankfully, there are lots of plants that attract both!

Love the simplicity of that.

Once my hummingbird plant list was honed, I considered what plants are more deer-resistant than others.

While I don’t mind adding plants that have a low deer resistance rating because I spray them, I prefer to focus more on plants that they tend to avoid.

To learn more about creating a deer-resistant garden, CLICK HERE.

(Posts on stacyling.com may contain affiliate links. Click HERE for full disclosure.)

But What is So Special About Hummingbirds?

There really is no other bird quite like the hummingbird.

Hummingbirds are amazing fliers.

Did you know they can fly forward, backward, and upside down?

Yes!

Beating up to 80x per second, hummingbird wings make a unique and zipping-like sound.

There are several different species of hummingbirds.

And hummingbirds need a lot of food to survive.

So creating a garden that helps them eat is a huge attraction to the hummingbird.

How to Take Care of Plants While on Vacation

What Does it Mean When a Hummingbird Visits You?

So there’s lots of symbolism and meaning behind hummingbird visits.

Hummingbirds bring joy with good news!

They teach us to appreciate the small things and life.

And that sometimes, you just have to stop and smell the flowers.

spring garden clean up tips to help keep the garden healthy

How to Attract Hummingbirds to the Garden

To attract more hummingbirds to the garden, plant a variety of flowers and shrubs in varying heights to provide shade, shelter, food, and water.

Hummingbirds love bright-colored, tubular flowers because they hold more nectar and are particularly drawn to red, orange, pink, and yellow hues.

Attract them to the garden with early blooming varieties so they learn where they want to stop and shop early in the growing season.

4th of July Celebration Table

In my gardens, hummingbirds love to sample:

  • Catmint
  • Bee Balm
  • Echinacea
  • Cleome
  • Columbines
  • Impatiens
  • Petunias
  • Hibiscus
  • Petunias
nepeta flowers
Nepeta (catmint) flowers attract hummingbirds.

Design Tip

Grow similar flowers together in a large group so that hummingbirds can spot them more easily while flying.

In my gardens, I design in odd-numbered groupings, so depending on the mature size of a plant, I generally plant in 1’s, 3’s, and 5’s.

Since my garden is fairly mature, I’m at the point where I tuck new plants in wherever I can fit them! LOL!

perennials vs annuals
Catmint and Butterfly Weed in my front yard cottage garden.

Additional Feeders

Hummingbirds also appreciate artificial feeders to supplement flower nectar.

I do not have hummingbird feeders in my garden. Not that I don’t want one, but I was very lazy about maintaining it.

Since I am not an expert on these feeders, please see Attracting Hummingbirds by the North Carolina State University

If you would like more information regarding pollinators, see Creating Inviting Habitats by the Virginia Cooperative Extension.

To learn more about gardening for hummingbirds, CLICK HERE.

And if you want to learn more about how to grow a butterfly garden, CLICK HERE.

And HERE is a list of plants that attract butterflies too.

dividing perennials - echinops, echinacea and monarda

Garden Tour 2019

During the 2019 growing season, I documented and photographed my gardens weekly to watch how they grew and changed.

The following photos are how my gardens looked then.

To see what they look like now (and they look dramatically different), CLICK HERE.

Front Yard Cottage Garden

As we meander along the front garden pathway, I want to highlight what’s blooming this week.

It’s such a joy to see this garden grow and change every day.

In bloom are: Catmint, Cleome, Dahlia, Euphorbia, Marigold, Roses, and Pansies.

I love incorporating the colorful foliage of Coral Bells (Heuchera) to play off the hues in the flowers.

Notice the bright tubular purple flowers on this Catmint plant.

While I was weeding, the hummingbird came by often for a taste.

I used to have so many more Asiatic Lillies.

While I love these gorgeous flowers, they were decimated by the lily leaf beetles.

And they are not easy to eradicate.

This is one of the few I have left and it’s just starting to bloom.

Once these die out I’m done growing Asiatic Lillies.

Lamb’s Ear is not my favorite flower, but I love the color and texture of the foliage.

Not to mention, deer avoid browsing on this one.

Hummingbirds occasionally stop by this plant too!

When the flowers fade, I cut the stalks back so the foliage brightens up the garden.

Love the cute lab angel statue that Mackenzie gave me for Mother’s Day!

The Well Garden Tour

My favorite plant in this garden is smoketree.

That foliage gets me every time!

Isn’t it beautiful?

The pink peonies did not last long but they were beautiful while they bloomed!

I love the foliage color of smoketree and the movement that the Zebra Grass offers.

This garden will change to more red, yellow, and orange hues as the season progresses.

And Moonbeam Coreopsis is on the verge of blooming.

I can’t wait.

They produce such happy yellow flowers that the pollinators love.

It warms up my garden every summer.

This Butterfly Weed has reseeded itself in a few of my gardens.

It is preparing to bloom with these pretty orange blossoms.

If you are not growing butterfly weed, you should!

It is a major butterfly and hummingbird magnet.

And is super easy to care for.

Butterfly weed in the garden

Mailbox Garden Tour

The mailbox garden has always been a fun garden for me because it’s near the road and the mailperson enjoys seeing the blooms when she delivers the mail.

It’s also one of my smaller gardens so it’s a bit easier to manage during the growing season.

The Jackmanii Clematis that I planted here when we moved in about 20 years ago is starting to behave a little more.

I work on training it up the mailbox almost daily.

It’s growing up the mailbox like it’s supposed to and is just starting to bloom.

I really love these Petunias.

They are so pretty in the gardens.

These petunias are a little low to the ground for hummingbirds to enjoy, but I hang some on my deck that they visit frequently.

Jackmanii Clematis

Backyard Gardens Tour

I’ve got a few beds in the backyard.

It can sometimes be a lot to maintain.

But it’s worth it!

And I’ve got a bunch of flowers back here that hummingbirds really enjoy.

This Hibiscus Standard is a hummingbird magnet. They LOVE stopping by to grab a taste.

Like this Hibiscus Standard.

It is a hummingbird magnet!

They LOVE stopping by to grab a taste.

I love watching hummingbirds stop by this planter.

I have this Hibiscus Standard on my deck in one of the larger containers.

It is underplanted with Bacopa and Euphorbia.

The resident groundhog has already been by for a taste of the Euphorbia. Ugh.

This Caladium container is doing so well!

This Viburnum is just starting to bloom.

The aroma will be heavenly in the back for the next few weeks until it is done.

Joe Pye Weed is about halfway to maturity.

This plant adds a lot of height, drama, and fall color to the back border.

Not to mention, butterflies LOVE joe pye!

The Plume Poppies are starting to grow their plumes.

They are about 8 feet tall now and still growing!

This will be a lackluster year for my knockout roses.

Deer browsed and ate the first blooms off.

I am playing catch-up to resurrect them.

Happy I got a few blooms though!

And now, I am spraying everything with deer repellent.

CLICK HERE to learn what I use.

The vegetable garden is thriving!

We have been harvesting lettuce daily.

New Jersey has the best climate for growing berries.

These blueberries should be ready to pick in late June/early July.

The Raspberries are starting to grow.

These are so yummy to pick fresh!

They are so sweet.

Final Thoughts

I hope you enjoyed this week’s garden tour and appreciate you joining me. If you missed a few tours or want to see how much the garden has changed, you can see it here:

Do you love to garden too? I would love to hear about it and see some photos. Please leave your ideas, comments & more below or contact me here.

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Enjoy a beautiful day! xo

Stacy Ling

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4 Comments

  1. Thanks for sharing all this great information! Your pictures are amazing and your gardens must be breathtaking IRL!??

  2. I was setting here admiring your garden. You have done a lot of hard work to make it look so beautiful.
    I have a problem that I’m hoping you can help me with. At one time I had a garden much lime your but because of 2 slip disks and a narrow spine, and because of some other health issues I can mo longer get.into a garden and do all the planting that I loved to do. People in my neighborhood would stop by just to look at it. Even though I can’t get into a garden I have found I can plant in containers. Even though this house we moved into doesn’t have much to speak of for plants there still are a few hummingbirds around. I have put up feeders put I would like to put plants in containers for my hummingbirds. Can you help by telling me what plants for hummers will grow in pots and big containers? I’m going to put them on my deck. In the morning it is in the shade till around 11:00, then sun till 5:00 , then shade again. Can you help me by telling what plants I can put there for my hummers? My local nursery tried to help me what they suggested didn’t turn out to well
    So anything you can tell me will be greatly appreciated.
    Thank you and God bless

    1. Hi Jan! I’m sorry to hear you aren’t able to maintain a garden in the ground anymore. Containers are a great option! And you can grow so many plants in a container! If you go with perennials or shrubs and want them to overwinter, you’ll need to go up 2 hardiness zones from your current zone. Here are some of my favorites for attracting hummingbirds. And you can learn more about designing a hummingbird garden here: https://stacyling.com/gardening-for-hummingbirds/
      Nepeta
      Petunias
      Coneflowers
      Monarda
      Buckeye Tree
      Bottlebrush Buckeye
      Hardy Hibiscus
      Columbines
      Lonicera (non-invasive only)
      Mandevilla Vine