Hummingbirds – Julie L. Cleveland

A hummingbird resting on the top of my honeysuckle. I never knew they stopped moving until I saw this. @jcleveland

Once upon a time we had a large honeysuckle bush that was planted on the corner of our slab back porch. It was over 12 feet tall and full of flowers. The odd thing is only one lone hummingbird ever seemed to find the bush. During a construction project, the bush came down, but there are still many winding honeysuckle tendrils along the edge of our property that do attract hummingbirds occasionally. I have seen one on that this year after many years of no hummingbirds. To be fair, the honeysuckle that is on the property is not native and probably considered invasive.

I am planning my next project: A hummingbird hospitality center

I have tried the little hanging nectar tubes, but they were not interested, and being in Florida, I had to contend with ants and mold, so I gave that project up. My folks in Illinois are quite successful with their hanging feeder; I think they have my Dad trained to feed them when they perch on the window and look in. I prefer to do mine the natural way. The cardinals are already demanding enough.

This is something like what my folks have:

Firebush image by Louis R Nugent

My plan is to plant a native hummingbird garden somewhere in the yard where I can see it and they won’t feel threatened by the house or the dog.

Here are some of the native Florida plants that I am considering:

Firebush, Hamelia patens – We have one plant in the yard, but I want to put more in a concentrated area.
Coral honeysuckle, Lonicera sempervirens – These are vines, so I can’t pot them.
Coralbean, Erythrina herbacea – We have a couple of these scattered over the property, but I would like to put them in a concentrated area.
Tropical Sage, Salvia coccinea – I have blue Salvia that is great for butterflies, but if you haven’t noticed, hummingbirds seem to love red!
Cardinalflower, Lobelia cardinalis – These plants spike up to 6 feet, but they don’t vine, so they would be great in a pot.

Other plants that we already have include bottlebrush, cigar flower, red buckeye and more. They are not in one place, so it makes it hard to see if there are any hummingbirds on them since they are nested in with other plants and away from the house.

The project for the summer is to build a hummingbird section in the yard, so I will be ready for them as they migrate back this way at the end of the year.

Interested in building your own hummingbird hospitality center? Here are some books that might get you started.

Here is the same book, but instead of paperback, it is in eformat in the Kindle section of Amazon. It is currently in the Kindle Unlimited section, which means you can read for free!