Sticking to their Favorites

Once hummingbirds find a flower that they like, they will spend an enormous amount of time feeding from them. It becomes locked in their brain as to what a good flower should look like. They will dance from cluster to cluster looking for that specific flower, bypassing all others. You can always tell which flowers are worth keeping as your primary hummingbird attractors by the amount of time they spend at each one. When I started working on the Annuals and Perennials chapter of my book, I spent an entire summer tracking their favorites. Now I make it a regular practice to plant all the top hummingbird attractors each year. Of course, all regions across America will have many different perennials based on their hardiness, but when it comes to annuals there are many similar varieties that will work from one end of the country to the other. 2013, N.E. of Edmonton, Alberta. Juvenile Ruby-throated hummingbird.

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