More Plants for Hummingbirds by Amy Norwood

Cuphea Photo: White Flower Farms

If you’re looking to attract hummingbirds to your outdoor space this season, this blog has an excellent post titled “Plants for Hummingbirds,” dated May 20, 2021.  It mainly talks about two perennial flowers in an in-ground flower garden, Sunset Hyssop and Red Birds in a Tree that are very attractive to hummingbirds.  But, what if you want to attract hummingbirds but you don’t have an in-ground flower garden?

You can also attract hummingbirds with annual flowers in flower pots.  What hummingbirds like is a plant with tubular shaped flowers (Sunset Hyssop and Red Birds in a Tree have such flowers).  Two great annual flower choices that are readily available to buy at garden centers in the spring are Cuphea and Black and Blue Sage. 

Black and Blue Sage (Salvia guaranitica) Photo: White Flower Farms

Cuphea has many varieties with different looks and colors.  What these varieties have in common is an abundance of small tube-shaped flowers, just what hummingbirds like.  Cuphea is a smallish plant that works well in mixed pots or in an only-cuphea pot with several cuphea plants.  Every year I plant an only-cuphea hanging basket next to my back porch.  I sit in a chair there and watch the hummingbirds visit the basket.  If you sit still, hummingbirds will hang in the air in front of your face to check you out.  Gardening doesn’t get more fun than that!

Black and Blue Sage is a variety of the plant Salvia guaranitica.  It’s a tallish plant that’s quite showy with dark green leaves and spikes of cobalt blue flowers with black calyces.  The flowers are, you guessed it, tubular shaped.   Like Cuphea, it works well in a mixed pot or a pot planted only with Black and Blue Sage.  It’s too tall to thrive in a hanging basket. 

Both Cuphea and Black and Blue Sage require full sun to grow the flowers you need to attract hummingbirds.  As with all potted plants, the soil in the pot should be a potting mix, not soil from a bag labeled garden soil or soil from the ground.  Pots require drainage holes in the bottom so plant roots don’t drown when you water the plants.  Potting mix has the necessary drainage capability to move the excess water away from plant roots.  This may sound like a lot of do’s and do not’s, but if you’re new to flower pots, try planting one this summer.  It’s not so hard to do.  You’ll be rewarded with beauty and maybe some hummingbirds in your outdoor space.

Colorado State University Extension Fact Sheet 7.238 Container Gardens

https://extension.colostate.edu/topic-areas/yard-garden/container-gardens-7-238/

Home and Garden Information Center, Clemson Cooperative Extension; hgic.clemson.edu

https://hgic.clemson.edu/cupheas/

North Carolina Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox; plants.ces.ncsu.edu

https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/salvia-guaranitica-black-and-blue/