Nothing brings in hummingbirds like flowers. That is their natural food source and it’s the easiest way to feed them. You don’t have to make nectar, you don’t have to hang feeders, you don’t have to clean the feeders and keep changing the food every day. It’s the easiest way to attract and feed them.
If you’re a gardener, perfect. You can build a garden specifically to attract hummingbirds. The best way to figure out what to grow at your location is to pay a visit to your local garden centers. They will know which plants native to your area to plant for hummingbirds.
Salvia is a hearty plant that grows across most of the planting zones in the United States, and many varieties can be grown from seed (Palisades Mix Salvia Seeds – paid link).
If you don’t have a lot of ground for a garden, you can hang baskets of fuschia, petunias or other nectar plants that grow in pots in your zone.
When I lived in California all I had was a third floor balcony. There was no dirt up there to plant in. Everything I had was planted in pots and the plants grew very well. I had firecracker plants, bee balm, tecomaria and mexican sage. The hummingbirds loved all of them.
I want to tell you a story to bring home how important flowers are to hummingbirds. Several years ago there was what is known as a “superbloom.” This is an event that follows an unusually rainy winter in southern California. Death Valley and the Carrizo Plain come alive with millions of multi-colored wildflowers.
People drive there just to observe the carpets of color. Somehow the hummingbirds knew that this was happening. I had sixteen feeders on the balcony servicing the birds and in one week I went from using 90 pounds of sugar per week to just ten pounds the next week.
Most of the birds left! People were calling me asking me if I knew what happened to their hummingbirds! I actually found myself checking the ground looking for dead birds, thinking that maybe someone was spraying toxic chemicals in the area! Well, it turns out that the birds just wanted to feed from the nectar-rich wildflowers. They enjoyed the change in the menu and were all back several weeks later!
I completely changed the order of what I said. I think it makes more sense this way in print.
