Hummingbirds fly toward color red, orange, pink, purple and yellow. If you are standing in your garden, wearing these colors, a hummingbird might buzz you, looking for nectar. Alas, they figure out pretty quickly that you are not a flower. If you want them to stay in your garden, you must provide more for them than bright colors.

In early spring they fly north from Mexico and Central America, settling across North America as the weather warms, searching for the promise of food. They will arrive in your garden about the time that lilac, azalea, iris, gladiola, coral bells and columbine bloom. These bright flowers hold sweet liquid and the tubular flowers of the columbine and bells are an especially satisfying source of nectar. The lilac bushes host insects as well, a needed source of protein for our fliers.

The mimosa tree blooms a little later, bits of pink sweet fluff, high in the air. The tree offers leaf and twig for nest building as well as nectar and insects. You can look from your bedroom window out onto a flock of hummingbirds darting among the flowers.

Come mid-summer, honeysuckle, bougainvillea, butterfly bush and weed, hollyhock, bee balm, and sage all nourish the hummingbird. The tiny birds hover above the vines and shrubs and flowers, wings whirring, giving the gardener a great show. The wild plants may provide more nectar and bugs than hybrids which are bred for garden tidiness.

Perennial flowers will bring hummingbirds back year after year. But to hold them in your garden between perennials, put out some geraniums and impatiens; and in the spring plant nasturtium and zinnia seeds. Be sure fresh water is always available. In general, hummingbirds will visit where other birds too make a home thought with each other they are territorial and may fight fiercely over access to a hummingbird feeder. If you do put out a feeder, sugar water is sufficient. Don't use food coloring and don't add honey which can grow harmful bacteria.

But here's a word of warning. Orange trumpet vines attract hummingbirds. The flower is tubular and holds deep drafts of nectar. The trumpet vine, however, is an invasive species. It spreads by root, deep in the soil, sending shoots up along its path. And it spreads by seed, formed by the dozen in long bean pods. Be wary where you plant a trumpet vine, along a fence at the alley perhaps. But be vigilant.

And when your hummingbird garden is in full bloom, count all the other creatures that have come to share the delight.

Learn more about this author, Mary Ann Mcgivern.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

---

Add your voice

Know something about How to create a hummingbird garden?
We want to hear your view. Write now!