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.
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.
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.
In my gardens, hummingbirds love to sample:
- Catmint
- Bee Balm
- Echinacea
- Cleome
- Columbines
- Impatiens
- Petunias
- Hibiscus
- Petunias
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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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