All-America SelectionsAll-America SelectionsAll-America SelectionsAll-America Selections
  • AAS Winners
    • Search AAS Winners
    • Buy Winners
    • Complete AAS Winner List
    • About AAS Winners
    • Judges’ Biographies
  • Display Gardens
    • Visit an AAS Display Garden
    • Design Challenge Winners
    • Become an AAS Display Garden
    • Info for Current Display Gardens
  • Blog
  • About
    • About AAS
    • AAS Garden Types
    • AAS Award Recipients
    • AAS Meetings
      • Sponsorship Opportunities
    • Annual Reports
    • AAS Judges
  • Industry
    • Enter AAS Trials
    • AAS Media Kit
    • AAS Introduction Gardens
    • AAS Ambassador Tools
    • Signs and Brochures
    • Wholesale Sources
    • Judge’s Login
  • Contact
Next Previous

Attracting Hummingbirds with AAS Winners

2 April, 2020
Attracting Hummingbirds with AAS Winners - All-America Selections
Attracting Hummingbirds with AAS Winners - All-America Selections

Seeing hummingbirds in the garden is an enjoyable and memorable experience for everyone.

Giving them a reason to visit is easy by planting appropriate All-America Selections Winners in your landscapes.  With 90% of the hummingbird diet consisting of nectar (the rest of the diet includes insects!), providing beautiful and appropriate plants can keep these amazing creatures busy in your garden.

Written by Mark Dwyer
Landscape Prescriptions by MD

Did you know…

Hummingbirds eat every 10-15 minutes and have to consume 50% of their body weight every day to keep up with their active metabolisms (heart rate can be over 1,000 beats per minute!).  With wings beating up to 80 times per second, hummingbirds will visit between 1,000-2,000 flowers daily; from dawn until dusk.  Hummingbirds can fly in any direction, including backwards.  This will allow them to hover and check over a wide range of flowers very quickly.  Tubular-shaped flowers are ideal for nectar retrieval due to the long bills and grooved tongues of hummingbirds. With 25 species native in the United States, providing a diverse amount of plant material as food sources for hummingbirds should result in exciting opportunities for visitation and observation.

With urban development, changes in land use and a warming climate, migration routes of hummingbirds and nectar availability are being compromised.  Every AAS hummingbird-appropriate plant in our garden beds, containers and baskets can help keep the populations happy and healthy.

Hummingbirds on a Zinnia - All-America Selections
Hummingbird taking a drink from a Red Salvia - All-America Selections
Hummingbird on a Zinnia - All-America Selections
Hummingbird and bee feeding from a red salvia - All-America Selections

Hummingbird photos above courtesy of Marsha Mood

Some other prudent steps to consider when creating a hummingbird-friendly garden include the following:

  1. Consider the additional use of hummingbird feeders – keep them filled (twice per week), clean (weekly!) and protected from ants, bees and other uninvited guests. Multiple feeders should not be placed within sight of each other due to territorial conflicts
  2. Eliminate chemical use in your garden.
  3. Encourage neighbors to help expand “hummingbird-friendly” patches of diverse plantings.
  4. Include native plants which have appropriate nectar value but will also help attract the insect portion of the hummingbird diet!
  5. Expand your plant diversity in terms of variety but also in terms of the timing of the bloom period. Summer blooming perennials, woody plants and annuals can provide a hummingbird buffet!
  6. Space your hummingbird friendly plantings around the garden and provide individual plant spacing to allow for them to hover and navigate.
  7. A drip fountain or misting device will provide welcome moisture for hummingbirds and other wildlife.

AAS Winners for Hummingbirds

Agastache Golden Jubilee - AAS Winner

Agastache ‘Golden Jubilee’

This plant has showy golden foliage, topped by blue flower clusters that feature smaller, tubular flowers that will be of great interest to hummingbirds and other pollinators.  Hardy to zone 5.

Angelonia Serenita Pink - AAS Flower Winner

Angelonia Serenita™ Pink

This popular variety of summer snapdragon (15” tall) features stalks with individual, orchid-like blooms in profusion. Great in groupings or the container.

Canna South Pacific Scarlet - AAS Flower Winner

Canna South Pacific™ Scarlet

This compact (32” tall), seed-grown selection is perfect for the bed, border or container.  Adding a tropical-look to the garden, the flowers are a hummingbird magnet!

Cosmos Cosmic Orange - AAS WInner

Cosmos ‘Cosmic Orange’

This excellent selection features a profusion of orange blossoms throughout the heat of summer.  Cosmos, in general, are great for hummingbirds, bees and butterflies!

Nicotiana Perfume Deep Purple - AAS Flower Winner

Nicotiana ‘Perfume Deep Purple’

This compact flowering tobacco features deep purple, trumpet-shaped blooms, fragrance and certain hummingbird appeal!

Penstemon Twizzle Purple - AAS Flower Winner

Penstemon barbatus ‘Twizzle Purple’

This first-year, flowering perennial (z 4-9) blooms profusely with vibrant purple, tubular blooms and offers welcome height (35” tall) in the border or container.

Pensetemon Arabesque™ Red - AAS Flower Winner

Penstemon ‘Arabesque™ Red’

This hybrid selection is used as an annual or perennial (z 6-9) and features red and white, bi-color blooms and a height of 24”. This variety has demonstrated excellent garden performance in the sun and heat!.

Petunia Tidal Wave Red Velour - AAS Flower Winner

Petunia Tidal Wave® Red Velour

This vigorous, continuously blooming petunia features deep, velvety red blooms (non-fading) in profusion.  All AAS Winning petunias are appropriate for hummingbirds!

Salvia Summer Jewel Red - AAS Flower Winner

Salvia ‘Summer Jewel™ Red/Pink/Lavender’

This florific series of scarlet sage (S. coccinea) is a slam dunk for hummingbirds. Individual, trumpet-shaped blooms on a central stalk will be visited in earnest on these heat-tolerant gems.

Salvia Evolution Violet - 2006 AAS Flower Winner - Evolution is the first Salvia farinacea with violet flower spikes.

Salvia ‘Evolution Violet’

Offering a beautiful, dark violet-blue flower stalk, this mealycup sage (Salvia farinacea) will attract bees, butterflies and certainly hummingbirds. This selection is great in groupings or as an accent.

Tithonia Torch is an excellent AAS Winner for pollinators! - All-America Selections

Tithonia Torch

This Mexican sunflower (60”+ in height) will offer bright orange blooms from mid-summer until frost and will attract a wide range of butterflies and is a hummingbird favorite. Look for ‘Fiesta del Sol’ for a more compact form (36” in height).

Zinnia Magellan Coral - AAS Flower Winner

Zinnia Magellan Coral

Zinnias love the sun and heat and this compact, mildew-resistant variety will be both beautiful and functional in the garden as a “pollinator magnet”!

Tubular shaped flowers work the best to attract hummingbirds.  The long beak of the hummingbird can easily get to the food.

“This post is provided as an education/inspirational service of All-America Selections. Please credit and link to All-America Selections when using all or parts of this article.”.

Tips on how to attract Hummingbirds to your Garden with AAS WInners - All-America Selections

Leave a Comment

Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




The maximum upload file size: 64 MB. You can upload: image, audio, video, document, spreadsheet, interactive, other. Links to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other services inserted in the comment text will be automatically embedded. Drop file here

Follow Blog via Email



Topics

  • AAS in the News
  • AAS Winners
  • Edible Winners
  • Flower/Ornamental Winners
  • Gardening Tips
  • Perennial Winners
  • Pollinator Garden
  • Recipes

Archives

  • February 2023
  • December 2022
  • August 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • August 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • October 2018
  • August 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • July 2015
  AAS Winners

MISSION STATEMENT

“To promote new garden varieties with superior garden performance judged in impartial trials in North America.”

CONTACT

5201 Walnut Ave. Suite 3
Downers Grove, IL 60515
Phone: 630-963-0770

QUICKLINKS

  • AAS Winners
  • Media Kit
  • Judge’s Login

ENEWS SIGN-UP

  AAS Winners
Copyright © 2023 All-America Selections.
  • AAS Winners
    • Search AAS Winners
    • Complete AAS Winner List
    • About AAS Winners
    • Judges’ Biographies
  • Newsletter Sign up
  • Display Gardens
    • Visit an AAS Display Garden
    • Design Challenge Winners
    • Become an AAS Display Garden
    • Info for Current Display Gardens
  • News
  • About
    • About AAS
    • AAS Award Recipients
    • AAS Meetings
    • Annual Reports
  • Industry
    • AAS Introduction Gardens
    • Media Kit
    • AAS Garden Types
    • Signs and Brochures
    • AAS Ambassador Tools
    • Breeders’ Entry Information
    • Wholesale Sources of AAS Winners
    • Judge’s Login
  • Contact
All-America Selections