My hummingbird feeder went up yesterday after checking the hummingbird sighting websites and seeing a few posts from Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio.

Sure enough, not even an hour later I saw my first hummingbird of the season!

I never thought my adult self would nerd out so much over birds, but I get legitimately excited when I see a hummingbird. As a child, I rarely paid any attention to them. My folks had a bird feeder in our backyard that was sometimes filled, but I don’t remember being able to identify any bird species other than Robins and Cardinals, and I didn’t care to try and learn more.

Change

But something about settling down and beginning the march towards middle-aged changed me into a bird person. Every immediate relative has received a bird feeder from me as a gift (some have gotten two). There is a pair of binoculars by my front door and a bird identification guidebook on the side table. And while I haven’t gone on any bird-specific vacations yet, it sounds like a great time to me.

Our neighbors west of the old farmhouse we used to rent had fed the hummingbirds for years, so when we started feeding them, we instantly had 20 to 30 hummingbirds showing up at our feeders. Often I would refill two feeders at least once a day. It was magical having all those little birds buzzing around you, and many of our grown-up friends became giggling children while standing on our porch in the summer.

Then we bought a house on the other side of the county, and we aren’t fortunate enough to have close neighbors that have helped build up the hummingbird population here. (I also should give some credit to the large Mimosa tree that is always buzzing with hummingbirds when in bloom. It had fed them long before we arrived.)

Attracting Hummingbirds with Flowers

Over the past six years, I have been faithfully filling a feeder and planting flowers that attract hummingbirds, and I am finally seeing some results. I think we had at least ten hummingbirds visiting the feeder last season, so I’m looking forward to seeing even more this year.

Hummingbirds are most attracted to red tones and flowers with tubular shapes that stand out from the foliage.

The following, in no particular order, is a list of plants that work well in containers and will help attract hummingbirds:

• • Fuschia
  • Petunia
  • Calibrachoa (Million Bells, Super Bells)
  • Salvia
  • Geranium
  • Nicotiana (Flowering Tobacco)
  • Lantana
  • Begonias
  • Impatiens
  • Verbena
  • Nasturtium
  • Hibiscus
  • Dahlia
  • Pentas
  • Zinnia (short varieties)
  • Heuchera (Coral Bells)

Most of these are annuals in my Zone 6b climate, but the last plant on the list, Heuchera, is a perennial in most areas. Its foliage comes in many nice colors and textures, which might just make it the perfect filler plant in mixed containers. All of the listed plants above come in a variety of colors, and hummingbirds will visit most flowers, no matter what the color; but because hummingbirds can see red from a distance, always keep it in the color scheme for best results.