Darin Engh, from Engh Gardens, has the secrets for luring hummingbirds to your yard, and keeping them returning.
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Key Ingredients: nectar source, supplemental food sources, suitable water supply, sunlight, and shelter
Red attracts hummingbirds like a magnet. Orange and pink are also favorites. Hummers prefer tubular flowers. Their long, narrow bills and needlelike tongues allow them to secure nectar from tubular flowers unreachable by bees and butterflies.
Creating a Hummingbird Garden
• Plant plenty of red, tubular flowers
• Be sure to plant lots of flowers—a single hummingbird needs to visit hundreds of flowers a day to fuel its high metabolism.
• Choose annuals that bloom all season and perennials that open sequentially, so your resident hummers won’t ever find themselves without food.
• Arrange flowers in beds and borders around a large, sunny lawn so the birds can get to them easily. Or plant hummingbird favorites in window boxes or hanging baskets on a porch or near a patio so you can lure the birds up close.
• Humming birds also eat insects. Be careful with insecticides.
• Hummingbirds need water but will not drink or bathe in water as deep as that in most birdbaths. They prefer to dart in and out of the spray from a waterfall. You can cater to their needs with a shallow basin. Better yet, include a fountain or trickling waterfall in your garden design.
• Most yards with trees and shrubs provide enough shelter for hummingbirds.
• Include at least one hummingbird feeder. This supplemental food source helps out with their high-calorie diet needs and supplies emergency food in case of flower failure.
Plants to attract Hummingbirds
• Trumpet vine is a prime choice
• Shrubs—Quince, Weigela, Hibiscus
• Spring perennials—columbines, bleeding hearts, lungworts
• Summer perennials—hollyhocks, butterfly weed, sweet William, foxgloves, coral bells, red-hot poker, monkey flower, bee balm, penstemons, Daylily, bee balm
• Late summer perennials—hostas, cardinal flower,
• Annuals—snapdragon, larkspur, fuchsia, morning glory, lantanas, lobelia, four o’clocks, flowering tobacco, ivy geranium, zonal geraniums, petunia, phlox, red salvia, nasturtiums
• Bulbs—canna lily, gladiolus, dahlia
5 Picks for Hummingbirds
• ‘Jacob Cline’ Bee Balm Monarda didyma
• ‘Heather Queen’ Agastache cana
• Orange Carpet Hummingbird Trumpet Zauschneria garrettii
• ‘Lady in Red’ Texas Sage
• ‘Summer Wave Blue’ Torenia hybrid
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For additional information, contact Darin Engh or any othe the other trained staff at Engh Gardens.
8214 South 700 East
Sandy, Utah
801-748-0102
Or visit their website at www.enghgardens.com
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