32 Beautiful Plants To Attract Hummingbirds
Little colorful birds moving up and down hither and tither at lightning speed are beautiful in any garden. Apart from making gardens and other outdoor areas lively and active, they are also known to assist in pollinating several plants. To tempt these beautiful animals, it becomes possible to plant flowers that will offer them honey nectar.
Hummingbirds are very partial to flowers, which are vivid in color, and those that have a tubular structure as they fit nicely on the long bills of the birds. Here are 32 attractive plants that attract hummingbirds to your garden, classified by the shape and style of the flowers they produce.
Top 8 Tips For Choosing Hummingbird-Friendly Plants
Before diving into specific plants, it's important to consider a few essential tips when selecting flowers for your hummingbird garden:
- Opt for Bright Colors: Some know that hummingbirds are responsive to any color with a red, pink, or orange tinge.
- Choose Tubular-Shaped Flowers: These flowers were harmonious with the hummingbird because the bird has such a long beak and tongue.
- Plant in Clusters: Clustering brings particular foods together in one place, making it easy for the hummingbirds to identify them.
- Ensure Continuous Bloom: Choose the plants that bloom at different times so there will be nectar for the stimulants throughout the season.
- Consider Native Plants: Local plants are preferable for wild hummingbirds, and they are less demanding than imported plants.
- Provide Perching Spots: Hummingbirds require a place to perch as they wait for the next feed, so place small trees or shrubs.
- Avoid Pesticides: Pesticides and other chemicals are toxic to little birds; therefore, go natural when controlling pests.
- Add Water Features: A birdbath or installing a misting fountain may be beneficial since hummingbirds also love to bathe or take a dip and get water.
Beautiful Plants To Attract Hummingbirds
Below are six types of flowers or plants with their different categories that attract hummingbirds.
1. Tubular Flowers
Tubular flowers are among the favorites of hummingbirds because tubular flowers are hard for takers. Their shapes enable them to feed on nectar while flying and protrude when they hover in mid-air, a factor that is characteristic of hummingbirds.
- Bee Balm (Monarda didyma): red, tubular flowers
Bee balm is unique. It blossoms with small, tubular flowers that resemble those hosted by milkweed. These blooms are not exclusive to hummingbirds but are also pollinated by other insects, such as bees and butterflies.
- Cardinal Flower (Lobelia cardinalis): bright red tubular spikes
The Cardinal Flower blooms and bears brightly red tubular spikes that can catch the eyes of everyone in the vicinity. It is now regarded as an annual that thrives best in wet conditions; hence, it must be planted near water bodies such as ponds or streams.
- Hummingbird Sage (Salvia spathacea): tubular red or pink flowers
As the name suggests, this plant is preferred by the hummingbirds. It has tubular red or pink flowers that are often clustered at the apex of the plant. Mini Lilly grows best in dry, shady areas and blooms in the first two decades of the year, offering nectar as the only diet throughout the flowering period.
- Scarlet Sage (Salvia coccinea): red tubular blooms
Scarlet Sage has stunning bright red, tubular-shaped flowers that attract many hummingbirds. This plant prefers several soil types and can be grown in the open ground or shaded area.
- Trumpet Creeper (Campsis radicans): Large, trumpet-shaped flowers in orange or red
Despite its name, the Trumpet Creeper is valued for its large trumpet-shaped flowers in the orange and red color range. Their size and shape make them especially suitable for attracting hummingbirds.
- Firebush (Hamelia patens): orange to red tubular flowers
Firebush bears brilliant orange to scarlet tube-like blossoms, which are horticulturally attractive to hummingbirds. An herbaceous perennial, it grows well in warm and humid conditions and is moderately drought-resistant once well-rooted.
- Coral Honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens): tubular red and orange flowers
This plant can provide tubular red and orange flowers throughout the early spring and summer, though it is small and rather unimposing. This vine is not as invasive as most honeysuckle types and is, therefore, suitable for small yards.
- Trumpet Vine (Campsis radicans): trumpet-shaped flowers in various colors, including orange and red.
Although the Trumpet Creeper has trumpet-shaped flowers of various colors, the Trumpet Vine also has trumpet-shaped flowers in orange and red.
- Firecracker Plant (Russelia equisetiformis)
This plant has rather small pipe-shaped red flowers that are grouped in numerous, flat-topped umbels; the stems are thin and distinctively arched. It is suitable for hanging baskets or can be grown as a ground cover.
- Scarlet Gilia (Ipomopsis aggregata)
This plant also has clusters of tubes that possess star-like features with red coloration in their flowers. This is a xeriscape plant which blooms from mid to late summer.
- Pineapple Sage (Salvia elegans)
Pineapple sage is a perennial that blooms with beautiful red tubular flowers in summer and fall. Its leaves have a wonderful aroma and resemble pineapples; thus, it can be said to be a beautifying plant.
2. Bell-Shaped Flowers
Plants with bell-shaped and downward-facing flowers attract the two birds, most especially the hummingbirds. The birds' feed' on these flowers as they adapt a hovering perch to access nectar from the bloom.
- Fuchsia (Fuchsia magellanica)
Fuchsia plants are popular for the drooping bell-shaped flowers in different pink, red, or purple tones. These flowers are pendent and thus form a spectacle that cannot be disliked by any hummingbird.
- Lily of the Valley (Convallaria majalis)
While not as vivid as other flowers attractive to hummingbirds, Lily of the Valley gives a more subtle, small, delicate, bell-shaped flower, but en masse, the flowers may attract hummingbirds.
- Foxglove (Digitalis purpurea)
Ageratum consists of a tall and slender inflorescence made up of bell-shaped flowers in purple, pink, and white. The plants are tall in structure, with just enough nectar harbored in each bloom to attract tiny birds, most especially hummingbirds.
- Coral Bells (Heuchera spp.)
Coral Bells are tall and slim perennials that grow clusters of small, bell-shaped flowers. These flowers come in different colors: pink, red and white. The foliage is also ornamental, and it is most often green, purple, or bronze.
3. Tube-Like Or Spike Flowers
Peike or echinate flowers, which are long and tubular, are among the most suitable for beautifying hummingbirds. Such plants have several flowers on a stem and provide access to an extensive area of nectar, all within the relatively confined space of one stem.
- Lupine (Lupinus)
Lupines bear erect panicles of tubular-shaped, crowded flowers. These flowers come in different color varieties of blue, purple, pink, and yellow, making the view very beautiful to behold. These spikes attract hummingbirds owing to the availability of fresh nectar in their flower spikes for as long as they last.
- Salvia (Salvia spp.)
Salvia is a large group of plants with tubular flowers in red, purple, and blue. These plants are easy to cultivate, require a low water supply, and can bloom during the summer, making them essential in creating a hummingbird garden.
- Butterfly Bush (Buddleia davidii)
Butterfly Bush can be recognized by its long, narrow, and cylindrical shaped flowers, which include several small flowers colored purple and pink and sometimes pink, white, and blue. In the summer, the bush is seen to be in full bloom.
- Anise Hyssop (Agastache foeniculum)
Anise Hyssop is a perennial herb that grows up to two meters tall and has purple-blue flowers on young spikes. The plant has aromatic leaves with the smell of licorice and thus gives the garden an added dimension of smell.
4. Brush-Like Flowers
Brush-like flowers have a large number of small flowers that arrange themselves in bunches and serve as an excellent nectar source for hummingbirds. They can also have rather fluffy-looking flowers that provide visual interest in the garden's texture level.
- Bottlebrush (Callistemon)
The plant's name is derived from the bottlebrush-like appearance of its flowers. The vibrant red color of these flowers attracts pollinators such as hummingbirds because the flowers contain a lot of nectar.
- Grevillea (Grevillea spp.)
Grevillea is an Australian Proteaceae family plant with brush-like red, pink, or yellow flowers. As the following lessons demonstrate, these flowers are some of the most attractive to hummingbirds.
- Spider Flower (Cleome hassleriana)
Spider Flowers bear full-like, feathery flowers in tight and erect heads like a spider’s legs. It has pink, white, or lavender flowers and blooms from summer through to the end of the fall season.
- Indian Paintbrush (Castilleja spp.)
Indian Paintbrush gets its common name from the fact that it has brightly colored bristle-like flowers, usually red, orange, or yellow. These plants are generally found in meadows as well as prairies.
5. Long-Tubular Flowers
Large tubular flowers give hummingbirds a longer bill community, enabling the birds to access the deep part of the bloom to feed on nectar. These flowers generally grow in a cluster, giving the same plant more than one feeding site.
- Honeysuckle (Lonicera spp.)
These plants have molecules of flowers with very long, slender tubes extending from them. The flowers can be reddish, pink, or orange and often possess a sweet smell. They are best suited for the spring/summer season and are an excellent source of nectar; hummingbirds are partial to them.
- Agapanthus (Agapanthus spp.)
Agapanthus, sometimes called Lily of the Nile, has spiny, elongated flowers in blue or white. The flower stalks arise from the foliage. The flowers grow on tall stalks, which makes them easier for hummingbirds to locate and feed on.
- Trumpet Honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens)
Trumpet Honeysuckle is a vigorous vine that produces clusters of long, tubular flowers in shades of red, yellow, or orange. It blooms from spring through summer.
6. Other Shapes with Tubular Characteristics
Some flowers can’t be classified under the four categories above, but they have tubular attributes that attract hummingbirds. These flowers contribute to the variability in the garden and also provide more nectar sources.
- Penstemon (Penstemon spp.)
The plant Penstemon, commonly called Beard Tongue, has slender, filter-like flowers ranging in color from red, pink, purple, and blue. The flowers are on tall stalks, offering a feeder place for several hummingbirds.
- Columbine (Aquilegia spp.)
Columbine flowers have an elongated spurred shape rather like a tube, making them suitable for attractive hummingbirds. These flowers can be obtained in spectra of colors and are most attractive when grown in the garden.
- Bleeding Heart (Dicentra spectabilis)
Bleeding Heart has exquisite flowers with a heart shape that hang on raft-like structures. Flowers are generally pink with a white margin and are well set off by the green mass of the plant.
- Red Hot Poker( Kniphofia spp)
The Red Hot Poker plant has erect, tubular flowers that shoot up high and begin at the top of the flower structure as red but mature to orange and yellow as they further down. They have a massive appearance, and therefore, they complement a garden.
- Zinnia (Zinnia spp.)
Zinnias are easy-to-grow annuals with bright, bold, daisy-like flowers. They come in various colors, including red, orange, pink, yellow, and white, and they bloom throughout the summer.
- Mexican Sunflower (Tithonia rotundifolia)
Mexican Sunflowers are tall, annual flowering plants that bear brightly orange-colored disk-margined flowers resembling a daisy. These are heat-loving plants that also bloom in summer.
Ending Notes
It can be attributed to the ability to incorporate several symbolic flower shapes and colors to attract hummingbirds. All the plant categories mentioned above offer something special for these birds, such as accessibility to the nectar in tubular flowers, plentiful feeding opportunities in brush-like flowers, or the beauty of bell-shaped flowers.
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