Designing a Garden With Hummingbird Flowers

Looking for ways to attract more hummingbirds to your garden? Follow these simple tips to design a garden with hummingbird flowers.

While working in the garden recently, I noticed more hummingbirds in the flower beds. I typically see them arrive this time of year.

It’s always a joy to see them bopping around the gardens. Want to attract them to yours? Follow these tips and you’ll get to enjoy these beautiful creatures too.

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How Hummingbirds Benefit the Garden

These little creatures bring not only joy and beauty to our outdoor spaces but also provide some incredible benefits to our plants and ecosystem. Here’s what you need to know.

They are Pollination Powerhouses

Hummingbirds are nature’s little pollination experts. As they flit from flower to flower, their long beaks and tongues allow them to reach the nectar hidden deep within the blooms.

While they’re feeding, they unintentionally transfer pollen from one flower to another, aiding in cross-pollination.

This process is crucial for the reproduction and genetic diversity of many plant species in your garden.

Plant Hummingbird Flowers

Certain plant species have evolved to develop a unique relationship with hummingbirds. These plants have bright and tubular flowers that perfectly match the birds’ feeding preferences.

By attracting hummingbirds, these plants ensure their survival and successful reproduction.

We’ll chat more about what types of flowers hummingbirds love below.

Pest Control Assistants

Hummingbirds are not just pollinators; they also contribute to natural pest control in your garden.

While they may be tiny, they have a big appetite for insects, including aphids, gnats, and small spiders.

By snacking on these pests, hummingbirds help keep their populations in check, reducing the need for chemical insecticides and promoting a healthier, more balanced garden ecosystem.

Joyful

Having hummingbirds in your garden adds an enchanting touch to your outdoor space.

They are so fun to watch too.

Their vibrant colors, incredible aerial acrobatics, and unique chirping sounds create a captivating atmosphere.

Imagine sitting on your porch or patio, surrounded by blooming flowers, while these delightful creatures dart and hover around, bringing life and a sense of harmony to your garden.

Ideas for Designing a Garden With Hummingbird Flowers

Attracting hummingbirds to your garden can be a fun and rewarding experience. Here are some tips to help you attract these beautiful and fascinating birds to your yard:

Hummingbirds are attracted to nectar-rich flowers, so planting a variety of flowering plants is a great way to attract them.

You can also provide a hummingbird feeder filled with a solution of four parts water to one part white sugar. Be sure to clean the feeder regularly and refill it as needed.

Hummingbirds need a place to rest between feedings, so providing perches such as twigs or branches can be helpful.

A shallow dish filled with water can also attract hummingbirds to your garden. The birds will use the water for drinking and bathing.

Hummingbirds will also appreciate having a shaded area in which to rest and hide from predators. You can provide this by planting native shrubs or trees, or by installing a birdhouse.

Hummingbirds are attracted to brightly-colored objects, so adding brightly-colored flowers, feeders, and birdhouses to your garden can help attract them.

In my gardens, hummingbirds, love to sample Catmint, Bee Balm, Echinacea, Cleome, Columbines, Impatiens, Petunias, and Hardy Hibiscus. But I’ve also seen them drop by my Weigelas, Buckeye Tree, and Mandevilla vines too.

Hummingbird Flowers: Garden Design Tips

Designing a hummingbird garden is a great way to attract these beautiful birds to your yard.

Here are some tips to help you create an inviting and functional hummingbird garden.

About the Flowers

• Choose hummingbird flowers that bloom at different times throughout the year to ensure a constant food source. This can include native wildflowers, shrubs, and trees.
• Choose nectar-rich plants. Hummingbirds are attracted to flowers with high sugar content, so select plants that produce a lot of nectar, such as bee balm, cardinal flower, columbine, and fuchsia.
• Hummingbirds are attracted to bright, bold colors, so consider adding brightly-colored flowers, birdhouses, and feeders to your garden to attract them.
• 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.
• Grow similar flowers together in a large group so that hummingbirds can spot them more easily while flying.

Must-Have Garden Design Features

• Create a focal point. Adding a hummingbird feeder as a focal point in your garden can help attract the birds and give them a convenient place to feed.
• Hummingbirds need a place to rest between feedings, so include perching areas, such as twigs or branches, throughout your garden.
• Plant a variety of flowers and shrubs at varying heights to provide shade, shelter, food, and water.
• Providing water in a shallow dish filled with water can also attract hummingbirds to your garden. The birds will use the water for drinking and bathing.

In my gardens, I design in odd-numbered groupings, so depending on the mature size of a plant, I generally plant in 1, 3, 5, 7 or 9’s.

Additional Feeders

In addition to planting different types of hummingbird flowers, they 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 they need to be meticulously maintained to keep them clean. As it’s really important to keep them free of mold and bacteria.

For me, it’s easier to provide more flowers that they enjoy.

10 Favorite Hummingbird Flowers

Here’s a list of my favorite easy-care plants that hummingbirds love.

• Nepeta
• Petunias
• Coneflowers
• Monarda
• Buckeye Tree
• Bottlebrush Buckeye
• Hardy Hibiscus
• Columbines
• Lonicera (non-invasive only)
• Mandevilla Vine

Don’t Have a Garden?

No problem! You can garden for hummingbirds in outdoor planters too!

Try this container garden idea with hummingbird flowers to help attract more of these beautiful creatures to your garden.

More About Hummingbird Gardens

Do you get a lot of hummingbirds to your garden? What are your best tips for attracting them? I would love to know more in the comments below.

And don’t miss joining my Gardening DIY and Decorating Community on Facebook for more chatter. And follow along there and on Instagram as well. There are behind the scenes daily things that I share on Instagram that don’t make it on the blog. Would love to see you there too!

If you prefer to binge watch Bricks ’n Blooms on TV, we go more in-depth with tours and posts on my YouTube channel. Would love to hang out with you there!

Looking for More Flower Garden Ideas?

If you love flowers and want to grow more in your garden, here are some posts that will get you on your way.

From tucking in flowering plants that are deer-resistant or ones that attract more butterflies and hummingbirds, to shade-loving flowers like the lenten rose, these posts will get you on your way to growing a garden that will bring joy for years to come.

Here are more cut flower and cottage garden growing tips, tricks, and design inspiration.

• 5 Quick Ways to Grow a Cottage Garden
• Why and How to Divide Perennials
• Perennials vs Annuals
• Flowers that Bloom in Midsummer
• How My Cottage Garden Grew in 2021
• Cut Flower Gardening for Beginners
• The Complete Guide to Roses Care
• The Basics of Hydrangea Care
• Everblooming Cottage Garden Design Ideas
• The Secret to Growing an Everblooming Cottage Garden

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June Garden Tour (2021)

Since writing this post, we moved. To see my new gardens, check out my easy-care cottage garden tour here and fall garden tour here.

(This tour is from my former home in June 2021)

Since I started blogging and joining Instagram, I’ve met some pretty cool gardeners. We all live in different parts of the United States and Canada, so each of our gardens are totally different.

I’ve learned so much from them and am joining one of my faves, Kim, who gardens in the Pacific Northwest, to bring you a virtual garden tour.

There is much to be learned walking around the garden and I love touring other gardener’s borders.

So follow along with her tour at the end of this post to see her garden – it is amazing!

Tour my Spring Flower Garden in the Front Yard

Welcome to my suburban New Jersey gardens!

There’s a lot happening in the garden this month and there is much to see. Since last month’s tour, the gardens have been filling in and blooming.

I tucked in some annuals to add season-long color and everything looks so pretty now.

As you walk up the pathway from the driveway, there is an everblooming perennial garden that greets friends, family and visitors.

Right now, the catmint, salvia, aliums, dahlias, pansies, bearded irises, calibroca, zinnias, and euphorbia are all in bloom.

The knock-out roses have had buds on them for a few weeks now.

They look like they will bloom any day now.

While working in this garden, I’ve seen lots of hummingbirds enjoy the catmint.

I have quite a few plants so they stop by often to grab some nectar.

One of which are these pretty dahlias that I picked up at the nursery recently.

I saw them and had to have them!

As this garden fills in, I’m realizing how much the coneflowers took over this bed.

I’m going to leave them for now, but will dig and divide them in fall so I can get more variety in this garden.

As you walk along the front walkway garden, it leads to the woodland garden on one side of the house.

This border contains cranesbill, ferns, bleeding hearts, rhododendrum, oak leaf hydrangea, joe pye weed, and siberian iris.

A few weeks ago, New Jersey was hit with a deep freeze for a few nights and some of my plants were damaged. The ferns took a hit but seem to be rebounding nicely.

The well and cutting garden is doing well.

I added a cutting garden to the well garden a few months ago so I had more room to add cutting flowers for arrangements.

The new plants I added are doing really well!

Blooming in this garden now are pincushion flower, lupines, dianthus, bearded irises, calibrocas, and zinnias.

The peonies are waiting in the wings to start flowering.

In the meantime, the foliage of smoketree and evergreens add to the visual interest in this bed.

The mailbox garden is filled with a mix of annuals and perennials.

Jackmanii Clematis is climbing up and around the mailbox.

It also houses daylillies, sedum autumn joy, calibrocas, euphorbia and marigolds.

Spring in the Backyard

As we head into the backyard, I am really loving the garden shed makeover.

The neutral paint colors allow the garden to be the main focus and do not distract the eye from the blooms.

In this garden, the bearded irises, siberian iris, double flowering impatiens, zinnias, marigolds and calibrocas are all blooming.

The vegetable garden sits in front of the garden shed and is currently growing spinach, celery, sweet peas, a few tomato varieties, peppers, cucumbers and zucchini as well as basil, cilantro, parsley, sage, thyme and rosemary.

In addition to the backyard borders, I also have lots of container gardens on the backyard deck.

This garden contains a few hummingbird loving plants such as mandevillas, petunias and hibiscus.

This is one of our favorite spots to hang and we are out here all the time.

Check out my friend Kim’s gorgeous garden in the PNW! It’s amazing to me how different our gardens are but I love her cottage style vibe.

She has the most amazing views on the Puget Sound. Check it out here.