It’s easy to attract colorful hummingbirds and butterflies to your garden. By providing for their needs, they’ll return year after yard.

Here are a few tips for attracting hummingbirds and butterflies to your garden:

Hummingbirds

• Hummingbirds eat flower nectar, tree sap, insects and pollen. Set up a hummingbird feeder, as an additional food sources. Click here for bird feeder options.
• Hummingbirds love water, especially if it is moving. A gentle, continuous flow from a fountain is a perfect addition to the garden.
• With an impressive 100 wing beats per second and speeds in excess of 25mph, hummingbirds appear to always be on the go. However, they spend 80% of their time perching on twigs and other suitable places. The Original Hummingbird Swing gives hummingbirds a nice place to perch. When placed near a food source, they could spend most of the day there. Watch the video below to see!
• Hummingbird favorites usually, but not always, have long and tubular blossoms. The shape limits insect access to the nectar inside. Hummingbirds like blossoms with lots of concentrated nectar.
• Hummingbirds are attracted to a garden that includes open spaces, allowing them to move freely from one nectar source to another.
• Select plants that have a variety of bloom times during the time pollinators are expected in your area.

Butterflies

• Plants should receive full sun from mid-morning to the mid-afternoon. Butterfly adults generally feed only in the sun.
• Did you know? Butterflies drink nectar from flowers through their tongues, which function much like straws.
• Butterflies need sun for orientation and to warm their wings for flight. Place flat stones in your garden to provide space for butterflies to rest and bask in the sun.
• Butterflies often congregate on wet sand and mud to “puddle” – drinking water and extracting minerals from damp puddles. Place coarse sand in a shallow pan and then insert the pan in the soil of your habitat. Make sure to keep the sand moist.
• Select plants that have a variety of bloom times during the time pollinators are expected in your area.

Here is a selection of plants that’ll attract plenty of pollinators to your garden:

Delphinium
Plant Type: Perennial
Sun Exposure: Full sun

Hummingbirds love Delphinium, which blooms in early summer. The height for these perennials can average anywhere between two to eight feet tall, depending on the variety you plant. Delphinium requires rich soil.

Gayfeather
Plant Type: Perennial
Sun Exposure: Full sun

Want to add a vertical element to your midsummer garden? Consider Gayfeather, whose purple, lavender or white spires are like three foot tall exclamation points! Butterflies and hummingbirds are big fans of this sun-loving perennial.

Cigar Flower
Plant Type: Annual
Sun Exposure: Part shade

Irresistible to hummingbirds, this flower is a fast-growing evergreen that offers a profusion of red-orange tubular flowers tipped with yellow from late spring to fall. The light green leaves are small and boldly veined on this climber.

Cardinal Flower
Plant Type: Perennial
Sun Exposure: Part shade

This plant features reddish purple stems, bronzy leaves and scarlet-hued flowers. A perennial, it can reach four feet tall and spread up to 36 inches wide. Cardinal flower appreciates full sun and moist, well-drained soil. Consider growing in a container, water it often and move indoors during the winter! Cardinal flower blooms beginning in mid-summer through the first frost.

Butterfly Bush
Plant Type: Perennial Shrub
Sun Exposure: Full sun

This bountiful plant attracts butterflies and hummingbirds with its blooms of lavender, pink, white, purple, red, or yellow. These blooms can appear beginning in the early spring and continue to blossom until the first frost. In full sun, Butterfly Bush can grow up to ten feet tall. It is an aggressive grower, and removing spent blooms will encourage more flowers.

Weigela
Plant Type: Shrub
Sun Exposure: Full sun

The showy blooms of Weigela come in pink, red, yellow, lavender or white, depending on cultivar, and appear in mid to late spring. Some cultivars feature variegated foliage, while other types have purple or maroon leaves. This shrub can grow as tall as nine feet and can spread even wider. Weigela thrives in full sun, attracting plenty of butterflies and hummingbirds to your garden!

Foxglove
Plant Type: Perennial
Sun Exposure: Part shade to full sun

Foxglove is a favorite, with its height of up to six feet when in bloom! It prefers moist, well-drained soil and full sun to medium shade. Its blossoms – in purple, pink, yellow and white – attract hummingbirds.

Salvia
Plant Type: Perennial
Sun Exposure: Full sun

All varieties of Salvia are characterized by vertical spikes of vibrant flowers that can be found in hues of blue, red, pink and violet. Bloom time varies according to the variety you plant, and their flowers are a wonderful sight for hummingbirds and butterflies.

Yarrow
Plant Type: Perennial
Sun Exposure: Full sun

Varieties of the tough summer-blooming Yarrow come in yellow, white, pink and coral. Butterflies and hummingbirds enjoy its blooms, which start early in the season and can last into mid fall, depending on the species and variety. Yarrow grows best in well-drained, average to poor soil and can reach up to 48 inches.

Bee Balm
Plant Type: Perennial
Sun Exposure: Part sun to full shade

Bee Balm’s blooms appear in mid to late summer and can even remain into the fall. The striking flowers come in pink, red, or purple, and complement the dark, aromatic foliage. Bee Balm likes medium to wet soil and likes full sun.

Hollyhock
Plant Type: Perennial
Sun Exposure: Full sun

Consider including Hollyhock in your garden, which blooms over a long period in the summertime. Depending on the cultivar, its blooms come in singles and doubles in shades of lavender, pink, purple, red, salmon, apricot, white, and yellow. Hollyhock is fast-growing and can reach up to eight feet in height, attracting plenty of hummingbirds and butterflies.

For more information, come by any English Gardens location and talk with one of our experts.