Attracting Hummingbirds

These hummingbird favorites are easy to plant and they will animate your garden in the most delightful way.

Agastache: Quickly becoming a summer favorite, this perennial has fragrant foliage and spiky flowers of pink, purple, blue, red and orange.

Hollyhock: Plant these and you’ll have sensational spires of flowers. A classic cottage garden plant that’s very easy to grow.

Alstroemeria: A favorite cut flower because they last so long. Lots of colors and plants of different sizes. Leave some for the hummingbirds!

Milkweed: Colorful and easy to grow. Yellow and orange/red are most popular. You’ll get lots of butterfly visitors, too.

Lion’s tail: Tall spikes of orange flowers appear on this shrubby perennial. Easy to grow.

Salvia: Lots of choices — all with colorful flowers. Many with richly fragrant foliage.

Pyrostegia: You’ll have cascades of orange flowers blooming fall through winter. Sometimes called flame vine.

Abutilon: Flowering maples produce beautiful bells of red, yellow, white, salmon and pink. They tolerate some shade.

Butterfly bush: Spectacular spikes of purple, pink, white and lavender. Cut back after blooming to get more blossoms. Of course butterflies love this shrub too. Plant the new dwarf forms if you have a small space.

Hibiscus: A favorite shrub in San Diego. Gorgeous, shiny, evergreen foliage and stunning flowers in warm weather. ‘Tradewinds’ is a new dwarf shrub reaching only 3 feet in height.

Lantana: So many colors, so many forms—from low, trailing types to small rounded shrubs. So easy to grow, too. Cut it back every winter to keep it clean and tidy.

Lavender: Take your pick; they’re all good. Fernleaf, Spanish and French lavenders bloom almost year-round.

Leucophyllum: Texas ranger, an evergreen shrub, has gorgeous silver foliage and violet or magenta flowers. If it begins to look a little rangy, cut it almost to the ground.

Rosemary: Bulletproof plants that trail, mound or grow upright, depending on the variety. You must let them bloom if you want hummingbird visits.

Trumpet vine: Included here are blood-red, vanilla, and royal trumpet vines—three different species of distictis. All have glorious trumpet flowers on beautiful, rich green foliage.

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