On the garden magic scale, butterflies rank pretty high, but I think hummingbirds stand even higher.\u00a0 On a normal spring or summer day\u2014provided that your chosen habitat is not a glass office tower\u2014you will probably catch a glimpse of a butterfly, even if it is only a common cabbage white.\u00a0 The arrival of a hummingbird, on the other hand, is not an everyday thing, unless you are very lucky.<\/p>\n
When the small birds do arrive, you have to look sharp as they speed through the landscape and pause to hover over individual flowers.\u00a0 Hummers are tiny, only 3.5 inches long, with a wingspan of about 4.3 inches, and they move so fast that you may never even see their slender wings at rest.\u00a0 The ruby-throated species–Archilochus colubris\u2014<\/em>is the predominant one in the eastern half of North America and has the largest range of any hummingbird species.\u00a0 Always fashionable, ruby throats are especially \u00e0 la mode right now, with their metallic green top feathers and contrasting grayish plumage underneath.\u00a0 As with many bird species, the males are gaudier than the females, each sporting a bright red throat patch.<\/p>\n That gaudiness helps them attract mates for the brief encounters that result in more hummingbirds.\u00a0 Hummers mate for seconds, not for life, and the male does not stay around for nest construction, egg-sitting, feeding of the young or spousal support of any kind.\u00a0 Gorgeous though they are, hummingbirds are also solitary and tend to guard their individual territories ferociously.\u00a0 The females minister to the chicks, which are fledged after about three weeks.<\/p>\n Inevitably gardeners ask, \u201cHow do I attract hummingbirds to my garden?\u201d\u00a0 Some people swear by feeders containing a sugar solution that mimics the birds\u2019 preferred flower nectar.\u00a0 But you don\u2019t need to invest in a feeder.\u00a0 Hummingbirds favor some of the same conditions as other birds: ample cover in the form of mixed plantings of trees, shrubs and perennials; a source of water; and abundant food plants.<\/p>\n If you are choosing annuals and perennials for this coming spring and summer, consider those with tubular flowers, like members of the mint family.\u00a0 The tubes, either tiny or somewhat larger, harbor the high calorie nectar the little birds need to sustain all that high-speed flight.\u00a0 By virtue of adaptation, hummingbirds sport long, flexible tongues that facilitate nectar extraction.<\/p>\n Agastache or hummingbird mint, comes by its nickname honestly, providing great color in beds or containers and lots of nectar.\u00a0 Salvias or sages do the same thing and decorative varieties abound in the marketplace.\u00a0 Bee balm or monarda is not just for bees; hummingbirds will also sip from the blooms.\u00a0 If you have vertical space, try trumpet honeysuckle or Lonicera sempervirens, which is not invasive like its Asian cousin, Japanese honeysuckle, but provides the same kind of abundant, tubular flowers.\u00a0 For those with strong support structures, lots of room and the discipline to keep a rambunctious plant properly pruned, trumpet creeper\u2014Campsis radicans\u2014with its ferny foliage and bold orange or yellow tubular flowers, is a good hummingbird lure.\u00a0 It can even be grown in tree form, if you start pruning and training early and don\u2019t let up.<\/p>\n In late summer, nectar from scarlet cardinal flower or Lobelia cardinalis, keeps the hummingbirds going as they begin to think about their lengthy annual migration to Mexico and Central America.\u00a0 The same is true of the currently-popular penstemon and wild jewelweed, which sometimes goes by the evocative nickname \u201ctouch-me-not\u201d.<\/p>\n If you decide to buy a feeder, make sure it is a type that you can clean easily and thoroughly.\u00a0 The sugar solution is a snap\u2014four parts water to one part plain white sugar.\u00a0 Since flower nectar is a clear substance, there is no need to add coloring to the nectar-analog that you make up for your feeder.<\/p>\n Throughout history, humans have deliberately fermented sugar and water to make alcohol.\u00a0 This is not a good idea for hummingbirds, so empty, clean and refill the feeder often in summer.<\/p>\n Some people might be surprised to know that hummingbirds do not live by nectar alone.\u00a0 New mothers need protein in the form of small insects and spiders to nourish eternally hungry chicks.\u00a0 Even when they are not in parenting mode, adult hummers treat themselves to some of the same kinds of victuals.\u00a0 To keep the food chain safe, abstain from pesticides and herbicides in the garden.<\/p>\n Right now, still in the throes of winter\u2019s weakening embrace, we can only dream about hummingbirds.\u00a0 But simple exercises, like flexing our credit cards and ordering hummer-friendly plants, will help make those dreams a reality when the weather warms up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On the garden magic scale, butterflies rank pretty high, but I think hummingbirds stand even higher.\u00a0 On a normal spring or summer day\u2014provided that your chosen habitat is not a glass office tower\u2014you will probably catch a glimpse of a butterfly, even if it is only a common cabbage white.\u00a0 The arrival of a hummingbird, … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,2,3],"tags":[1590,1166,1588,828,1570,263,1589],"class_list":["post-2062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-general-interest","category-spring","category-summer","tag-archilochus-colubris","tag-garden-wildlife","tag-habitat-gardens","tag-hummingbird-plants","tag-hummingbirds","tag-mint-family","tag-ruby-throated-hummingbird"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2062"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2062\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2063,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2062\/revisions\/2063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}