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Plants for hummingbirds

Plants hummingbirds visit, for a garden that feeds them from spring to fall.

Hummingbirds feed on nectar from tubular flowers, and red ones above all, though they visit orange, pink and purple too. What matters most is succession. Ruby-throated hummingbirds arrive in spring and leave in early autumn, and a garden that is in flower only in June feeds them for a few weeks; one that runs from columbines in May to salvias in September keeps them all summer.

Every plant here is recorded by NC State as visited by hummingbirds. The lists are by bed position; the flowering time is after each plant, so a run from spring to fall can be chosen from them.

159 plants: 106 perennials, 6 bulbs and 47 shrubs.

The dozen to start with

  • Delphinium

    Delphinium

    5 ft · late June to mid July

    The great blue spire of the English border: dense columns of flowers up to head height in early summer.

  • Bleeding heart

    Bleeding heart

    2½ ft · early May to early June

    An old-fashioned favourite with arching stems of heart-shaped flowers in late spring.

  • Tall verbena

    Tall verbena

    5 ft · late June to mid October

    Small clusters of lavender-purple flowers on tall, wiry, almost leafless stems, from midsummer to frost.

  • Rose of Sharon

    Rose of Sharon

    10 ft · mid July to mid September

    An upright shrub with hollyhock-like flowers in pink, purple, white or violet-blue from midsummer to autumn, when few shrubs flower.

  • Rosemary

    Rosemary

    4 ft · early March to early May

    The kitchen herb: a dense, aromatic, evergreen shrub with needle-like leaves and small, pale blue flowers from late winter into spring.

  • Garden phlox

    Garden phlox

    3½ ft · mid July to early September

    Tall, often fragrant clusters of flowers that carry colour through the height of summer.

  • Mountain laurel

    Mountain laurel

    8 ft · late May to late June

    A native evergreen with crimped, sugar-icing buds that open into cup-shaped flowers of white, pink or red in late spring, in clusters that cover the plant.

  • Tiger lily

    Tiger lily

    4 ft · late July to late August

    Orange, black-spotted flowers with petals curled right back, up to twenty on a stem, in late summer.

  • Common lilac

    Common lilac

    11½ ft · early May to late May · host plant

    The lilac of old farmyards: large, heavily scented flower trusses in lilac, purple, white or pink in mid-spring, on a tall, suckering shrub that can live for a century.

  • Canna

    Canna

    5 ft · early July to early October · host plant

    Huge, paddle-shaped leaves, green, bronze or striped, topped with bright flowers in red, orange, yellow or pink from midsummer to frost.

  • Surprise lily

    Surprise lily

    24 in · early August to late August

    Clusters of fragrant, rose-pink trumpets, tinged with lilac, on bare stems in August.

  • Crocosmia 'Emily McKenzie'

    Crocosmia 'Emily McKenzie'

    24 in · early August to mid September

    Large, wide-open flowers of bright orange, each with a mahogany-red blotch in the throat, on arching sprays in late summer.

A bed planned only from these plants

The planner was given only the plants on this page that suit zone 6 and full sun, and designed this 16 × 8 ft (4.9 × 2.4 m) bed from them when the page was made.

A 16 × 8 ft (4.9 × 2.4 m) bed at eye level in late June: Verbena 'Homestead Purple', Cottage pinks, Foxglove beardtongue, False sunflower, Adam's needle, Wild bergamot, Wild lupine, Oriental poppy, Gaura 'Whirling Butterflies', Red spider lily, Surprise lily.
A 16 × 8 ft (4.9 × 2.4 m) cottage garden in zone 6, full sun, seen from the path in late June.
4. False sunflower44. False sunflower44. False sunflower46. Wild bergamot66. Wild bergamot66. Wild bergamot65. Adam's needle52. Cottage pinks22. Cottage pinks22. Cottage pinks21. Verbena 'Homestead Purple'11. Verbena 'Homestead Purple'11. Verbena 'Homestead Purple'12. Cottage pinks22. Cottage pinks22. Cottage pinks22. Cottage pinks22. Cottage pinks21. Verbena 'Homestead Purple'14. False sunflower43. Foxglove beardtongue33. Foxglove beardtongue33. Foxglove beardtongue38. Oriental poppy88. Oriental poppy89. Gaura 'Whirling Butterflies'99. Gaura 'Whirling Butterflies'99. Gaura 'Whirling Butterflies'97. Wild lupine77. Wild lupine77. Wild lupine72. Cottage pinks22. Cottage pinks22. Cottage pinks22. Cottage pinks22. Cottage pinks22. Cottage pinks22. Cottage pinks22. Cottage pinks22. Cottage pinks22. Cottage pinks22. Cottage pinks211. Surprise lily11. Surprise lily11. Surprise lily10. Red spider lily10. Red spider lily10. Red spider lily
From above, to scale. Each circle is one plant, as wide as the room it needs.

The plants

  1. 1 Verbena 'Homestead Purple' × 4, purple
  2. 2 Cottage pinks × 19, pink
  3. 3 Foxglove beardtongue × 3, white
  4. 4 False sunflower × 4, yellow
  5. 5 Adam's needle × 1, white
  6. 6 Wild bergamot × 3, lavender
  7. 7 Wild lupine × 3, blue
  8. 8 Oriental poppy × 2, pink
  9. 9 Gaura 'Whirling Butterflies' × 3, white
  10. 10 Red spider lily × 3, red
  11. 11 Surprise lily × 3, pink

Planned as a cottage garden: 42 of the 42 plants (100%), bulbs aside, stand alone or in groups of no more than five, small enough for the kinds to mingle. The bed is balanced: the left half carries 50% of the visual weight and the right half 50%. The scheme leans cool (purple, pink, lavender and blue) and uses yellow and red for warmth, with white to calm things between them.

The planner's own design check: 11 Excellent, 6 Good. It flags one thing to watch: Nothing on this plan is highly poisonous or an aggressive spreader.

Open this bed in the planner Change its size, the sun or the style, move plants about, or swap one for another.

All 159 plants

Show all 159, by where they go in a bed

Front of a bed 33

Middle of a bed 58

Back of a bed 68

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