Hummingbird Favorites

Attract beautiful hummingbirds to your yard by growing these beautiful garden plants.

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Bee Balm -- Perennial

Phlox -- Perennial

Lupine -- Perennial

Red-Hot Poker -- Perennial

Hollyhock -- Perennial

Columbine -- Perennial

Coralbells -- Perennial

Cardinal Flower

Foxglove -- Biennial

Lantana -- Annual

Salvia -- Annual

Butterfly Bush -- Shrub

Rose of Sharon -- Shrub

Cardinal Vine -- Vine

Trumpet Vine -- Vine

Honeysuckle -- Vine

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Bee Balm -- Perennial

Choose this easy-growing, summer-blooming perennial to make a bold statement in your landscape. While red is the traditional color for bee balm, you can also find varieties with pink, violet, and white flowers; all are good for attracting hummingbirds and butterflies.

Name: Monarda selections

Growing Conditions: Full sun or part shade and moist, well-drained soil

Size: To 3 feet tall and 2 feet wide

Zones: 4-9

Grow it with: Bee balm starts blooming after wild columbine (Aquilegia canadensis) finishes blooming, so you can extend the bloom season with this combo.

Phlox -- Perennial

Hummingbirds will appreciate phlox as much as you do. This old-fashioned perennial bears clusters of sweetly fragrant pink, red, lavender, or white flowers in summer.

Name: Phlox paniculata selections

Growing Conditions: Full sun and moist, well-drained soil

Size: To 4 feet tall and 3 feet wide

Zones: 4-8

Grow it with: Phlox looks great with dwarf varieties of butterfly bush, and hummingbirds have a tough time resisting either plant.

Click here for more on growing phlox

Lupine -- Perennial

A cottage-garden classic, lupines offer colorful spires of blooms in early and midsummer. Enjoy their hand-shaped foliage even when they're not flowering.

Name: Lupinus selections

Growing Conditions: Full sun or part shade and moist, well-drained soil

Size: To 3 feet tall and wide

Zones: 4-8

Grow it with: Daisies, for a long-blooming, cheery combination.

Click here for more on lupines

Red-Hot Poker -- Perennial

Red-hot poker features tall spikes of scarlet, yellow, white, and orange tubular flowers, and fountain-like clumps of coarse, grassy, gray-green foliage. It is impressive in small groupings at the back of the perennial border, or as a single specimen plant.

Name: Kniphofia selections

Growing Conditions: Full sun and well-drained soil

Size: To 5 feet tall and 3 feet wide, depending on type

Zones: 5-9, depending on type

Grow it with: Daylily for a stunning combo you can practically plant and forget.

Hollyhock -- Perennial

These old-fashioned favorites are renowned for their tall spikes of single or double flowers. They also bloom in a wide range of colors -- from purple-black to red, yellow, pink, and white.

Name: Alcea selections

Growing Conditions: Full sun and well-drained soil

Size: To 8 feet tall and 3 feet wide

Zones: 3-9, though hollyhocks are often grown as annuals

Grow it with: Hide hollyhocks leaves and the base of its lanky stems with bushier perennials such as baptisia or peony.

Click here for more on hollyhocks

Columbine -- Perennial

Start the hummingbird season out right with the cheery red-and-yellow blooms of wild columbine. This easy-growing perennial is native to areas of North America.

Name: Aquilegia canadensis

Growing Conditions: Part to full shade and moist, well-drained soil

Size: To 3 feet tall and 1 foot wide

Zones: 3-9

Grow it with: Columbine is a perfect partner for brightly colored coralbells.

Click here for more on columbine

Coralbells -- Perennial

Almost perfect perennial-border plants, coralbells offer mounds of attractive foliage and clusters of red, pink, white, or green flowers dangling above the leaves on narrow stems.

Name: Heuchera selections

Growing Conditions: Part shade and moist, well-drained soil

Size: To 3 feet tall and 2 feet wide

Zones: 4-8

Grow it with: Create lots of interest by combining a columbine with a small- to medium-sized hosta with variegated foliage.

Click here for more on coralbells

Cardinal Flower

It's tough to find a brighter red flower for the garden than Cardinal flower. This late-summer bloomer is native to North America.

Name: Lobelia cardinalis

Growing Conditions: Part shade and moist soil.

Size: To 3 feet tall and 1 foot wide

Zones: 3-9

Grow it with: Bee balm for nonstop red flowers all summer and into fall.

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Foxglove -- Biennial

Another staple of cottage gardens, foxgloves bear tall spikes of pink, purple, white, or yellow tube-shaped flowers in summer.

Name: Digitalis selections

Growing Conditions: Part shade and moist, well-drained soil

Size: To 6 feet tall and 2 feet wide, depending on type

Zones: 3-9, depending on type

Grow it with: Contrast foxglove's tall, upright form with mounding coralbells.

Note: Many of the common hybrid foxgloves are biennial (meaning they grow foliage one year, bloom and produce seed the next, and then die).

Click here for more on foxgloves

Lantana -- Annual

A favorite of butterflies and hummingbirds alike, lantana offers colorful red, yellow, orange, pink, lavender, or white flowers on heat-loving, drought-resistant plants.

Name: Lantana selections

Growing Conditions: Full sun and well-drained soil

Size: To 4 feet tall and wide (but usually less when grown as an annual)

Zones: 10-11, but usually grown as an annual in colder areas

Grow it with: Lantana is a perfect plant partner for colorful red annual salvia.

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Salvia -- Annual

Light a fire in any bed with these crimson annuals. Though most are red, you can find varieties in cream, purple, and salmon. They're all easy to grow and drought-tolerant.

Name: Salvia splendens selections

Growing Conditions: Full sun and well-drained soil

Size: To 16 inches tall and wide

Zones: Annual

Grow it with: Lantana for a heat- and drought-resistant, knock-your-socks-off combo.

Click here for more on salvia

Butterfly Bush -- Shrub

Don't let its common name fool you; hummingbirds love butterfly bush's fragrant flowers as much as butterflies do. This long-blooming shrub offers blooms in shades of white, purple, blue, and pink.

Name: Buddleia selections

Growing Conditions: Full sun and moist, well-drained soil

Size: To 10 feet tall and 12 feet wide

Zones: 6-9

Grow it with: Butterfly bush looks great paired with summer-blooming bee balm varieties.

Note: Butterfly bush has shown invasive tendencies in some areas; check local restrictions before planting it.

Click here for more on growing butterfly bush

Rose of Sharon -- Shrub

Although it doesn't have the red, trumpet-shaped flowers we associate with hummingbird plants, rose of Sharon provides plenty of nectar for butterflies. The flowers appear throughout the summer in shades of pink, purple, white, and lavender.

Name: Hibiscus syriacus

Growing Conditions: Full sun and moist, well-drained soil

Size: To 10 feet tall and 6 feet wide

Zones: 5-9

Grow it with: Contrast rose of Sharon's smaller flowers with the huge flowers of hardy hibiscus (H. moscheutos).

Note: Rose of Sharon has shown invasive tendencies in some areas; check local restrictions before planting it.

Learn more about rose of Sharon

Cardinal Vine -- Vine

One of the most brightly colored annual vines for the garden, cardinal vine features bold red flowers all summer long.

Name: Ipomoea multifida

Growing Conditions: Full sun and well-drained soil

Size: Climbing to 8 feet or more

Zones: Annual

Grow it with: Because cardinal vine is relatively restrained, you can grow it with other vines such as climbing roses or through shrubs.

Learn more about cardinal vine.

Trumpet Vine -- Vine

This vine is so good at attracting hummingbirds with its summerlong clusters of red, orange, or yellow flowers that you'll sometimes see it sold as hummingbird vine.

Name: Campsis radicans

Growing Conditions: Full sun or part shade and moist, well-drained soil

Size: Climbing to 30 feet or more

Zones: 5-9

Honeysuckle -- Vine

Trumpet honeysuckle blooms through the summer and autumn with clusters of scarlet-red tubular flowers. The blooms show beautifully against the vine's dark green foliage.

Name: Lonicera sempervirens

Growing Conditions: Full sun and moist, well-drained soil

Size: Climbs to 15 feet

Zones: 4-9

Grow it with: Plant red salvia around the base of your honeysuckle for lots of red blooms all season long.

Click here for more on honeysuckle

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