How to Designing a Hummingbird Garden

A hummingbird garden is a hummingbird’s paradise. It’s a way to attract hummingbirds to your yard, garden, or balcony. Hummingbird gardens are a great way to add beauty and joy to your backyard. They’re also a great way to provide a safe haven for hummingbirds during the winter months.

The hummingbirds that visit our garden come from many different places and so, although they all eat the same nectar, their preferences for particular kinds of plants can vary greatly. Some love trumpet-shaped flowers, and others favor long tubular blooms.

They are less likely to frequent cities, because they find fewer flowering plants for food and trees for nesting. Yet even in the largest cities, hummingbirds still inhabit parks and sometimes visit window boxes or roof top gardens planted with bright flowers, especially during their annual migration.

Once hummingbirds discover your property, the same individuals are likely to return each year at about the same time. They’re remarkable creatures of habit. The number of hummingbirds that visit your garden is closely linked to the availability of food, water, nesting sites, and perches.

How to grow Hummingbird Garden

1. Put three or more plants of the same species in your yard to provide larger quantities of nectar.

2. Choose plants that flower at different times of the year to provide nectar throughout the hummingbird’s season.

3. Prune your garden and cut back on the amount of fertilizer you use.

4. Learn about local hummingbird habits and which species are likely to occur in your neighborhood.

These are 15 simple steps to creating a hummingbird garden. They include drawing a sketch of your yard indicating the location of the house, outbuildings like garages and tool sheds.

• Hummingbirds are attracted to flowering plants. To create a hummingbird habitat, consider what already exists in your landscape and work with these existing features to enhance them with additional plantings. Step two. Select a location where your hummingbird habitat can be the center of attention.

• .A garden near a window or patio door is a good choice for an active bird. Small hummingbird gardens won’t have to be big, and hummingbird-only gardens don’t have to be big either. Small gardens will attract more hummingbirds, and even a few plants can be enough to give some hummingbirds something to drink.

• When it comes to gardening, step three means you should think vertically when planning your hummingbird garden. Use trellises, trees, garden sheds, or other structures to support climbing vines; add window boxes, wooden tubs, or ceramic pots to create a terraced effect and provide growing places for a variety of plants.

• Select native plants for your garden. Learn what plants hummingbirds feed on in natural areas near your home. Native hummingbird plants and the local hummingbird species have a long association in which plants serve as a reliable source of nectar at the same time each year.

• Impatiens cultivars for hummingbird feeders tend to be larger flowers, bright colors, and short stems, which would make them easy to observe. Rhododendrons cultivars have smaller flowers that are generally white or pale pink.

• Exotic flowering plants, such as Japanese and tartarian honeysuckles, can be attractive to hummingbirds. However, they also can crowd out more beneficial native shrubs and wildflowers.

• If you have red, tubular flowers, you’re offering a quick clue to a hummingbird’s value for that specific day. This is an important step to hummingbird feeding because hummingbirds prefer to feed on flowers in the morning and late afternoon. They are attracted to orange and pink blooms, but are drawn to yellow and white blooms even less.

• Use the migration dates, nesting season, and seasonal presence to help identify which plants hummingbirds are likely to eat. Then, use this information to select plants that will bloom at the right time of year for hummingbirds to visit your yard.

• Include some fuzzy plants in your yard. Hummingbirds need soft plant fibers for their nests. Cinnamon fern, pussy willow and others are good choices. Thistle and dandelion are also favorites.

• Water birds frequently bathe in shallow water – even in the drops that fall from garden misters, drip fountains, and small waterfalls. Hummingbirds often sit and preen or flick through the droplets. These are available at many gardening shops. Q:

• You’ll need to add some small bushes and shrubs to your yard if you don’t already have them to provide nesting sites for the Hummingbirds. Position perches within 10 to 20 feet of your garden to give them a place to rest during their long flights.

• If you have an area of yard where hummingbirds could use a home, consider planting a couple of trees. They may not look very attractive for several weeks, but over time they will produce fruit and nectar that are favored by the little birds.

• With luscious red flowers as bait, pure chance may keep your feeder a secret for a while. When hummingbirds do start visiting your garden, they’re likely to continue throughout the season and will usually return next year.

• If visits drop off for a week or two during the summer, it might be because an especially attractive nearby flower patch may have temporarily distracted your hummingbirds. If you take away their food source (insecticides), you’ll encourage them to return.

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