Hummingbirds and butterflies are like jewels in the garden, as beautiful as they are exciting to watch. Bringing them into your garden is the icing on the cake. Once you know a few simple things, it is as easy as it is fun to do.
Weighing less than a nickel, hummingbirds are intriguing and exciting visitors to our outdoor space. They also have an important role in the garden as plant pollinators and insect predators. Hummers are as useful as they are delightful.
There are two ways to attract hummingbirds to your garden - by growing nectar-producing flowers and by supplementing natural nectar with sugar-solution feeders. Since hummingbirds have little sense of smell, focus on providing highly visible, tubular-shaped flowers (pink or red in particular) that produce a great deal of nectar, rather than fragrant ones. Hummingbirds need to eat a third to a half of their body weight daily to fuel their high-energy lifestyle!
To increase the chances of seeing one of these diminuitive birds in your landscape, avoid using pesticides. These chemicals kill the insects that serve as a good source of protein for them and can also sicken or kill the birds if ingested.
Be sure to add plenty of places for these fast moving birds to perch in your backyard. Hummingbirds spend around 80% of their time sitting on twigs, shrubs, clotheslines, and other convenient resting places. They appreciate a place to just sit a spell.
A little known fact is that hummingbirds love dripping water. Unlike other birds like robins that prefer to wade and splash in a bird bath, hummers are more the dash through the sprinkler type of bird. So if you can provide dripping water or perhaps a mister in the garden, you are almost certain to find these little flying wonders joyously darting and flitting through them like children through a sprinkler on a warm summer day.
Just like hummingbirds, butterflies add color and movement to the landscape. It is easy to increase the number and variety of butterflies in your yard by simply growing the plants that the caterpillars and adult butterflies like to feed on. Then sit back and enjoy the show of color.
Butterflies can identify their favorite plants from miles away and travel for hours to taste the nectar of the flowers. By planting their favorite “foods”, you can attract them to your own piece of paradise. Even a window box, can bring several butterflies at a time. Plant their favorite foods and they will come.
By amassing plants together with varying blooming cycles, you will keep your garden full of butterfly activity throughout the growing season. Adult
butterflies will continue to visit your garden for a longer period of time if they find plants where they can lay their eggs. So be sure to include “host” plants as well as “food” plants. Place groupings of plants that bloom at the same time in the garden, rather than just one lone plant with a few flowers.
As with hummingbirds, it is important when trying to attract butterflies to minimize or avoid the use of pesticides. Then add some warm sunshine, a few stones where they sun bathe and a place to “puddle” after a rainfall, and you have a recipe for a long season of visual delight.
There are many plants to choose from in deciding to plant hummingbird and/or butterfly gardens. “Seeing red” may mean danger to humans, but it signals “time to eat” for hummingbirds. Focus on red or red-orange tubular shaped flowers when picking and choosing plants, and you should be very successful. The most common plants for creating a hummingbird garden include: Azalea, Bottlebrush, Columbine, Coral Honeysuckle, Crossvine, Elaeagnus, Eucalyptus, Dahlia, Delphinium, Foxglove, Fuchsia, Geranium, Hollyhock, Impatiens, Flowering Tobacco, Penstemon, Petunia, Salvia, Sedum, Trumpetcreeper, Turk’s Cap and Zinnia, to name a few.
Butterfly plants for caterpillars, also known as “host” plants include: Butterfly Weed, Dill, Fennel, Milkweed, Parsley, Passion Flowers and Snapdragons. Nectar plants for adult butterflies are numerous: Azalea, Beebalm, Lantana, Verbena, Butterfly Bush, Butterfly Weed, Cardinal Flower, Cosmos, Daylily, Dianthus, Flowering Tobacco, Four O’Clocks, Hollyhock, Impatiens, Penstemon, Pentas, Purple Coneflower, Rudbeckia, Salvia, Scabiosa (Pincushion Flower), Sedum, Sweet Alyssum, Viburnum and Zinnia.
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