How to Attract Hummingbirds to Your Lawn and Garden

If you want to see hummingbirds in your garden, plan now to create a hummingbird garden. You will soon see many of these beautiful small birds. Below are listed some trees and shrubs that attract hummingbirds:

Azalea Jacobiana

Butterfly Bush (Buddlela) Jewelweed

Flame Acanthus Lantana

Flowering Quince Manzanita

Fuchsia Petunia

Honeysuckle Various Salvia species

Impatiens Shrimp Plant

Another tree is the Desert Willow, which has pink trumpet flowers, and the hummingbirds love them. While living in New Mexico, we had a Desert Willow in our yard and a lot of hummingbirds. In addition to food sources, friendly perching opportunities will make your yard more hospitable to hummingbirds. They also like bright colors such as red or orange to decorate their feeders - get surveyor's tape, available in hardware stores.

Do not use pesticides around hummingbird plants. Killing garden pests will also

eliminate the small insects hummingbirds depend upon for protein. Also, hummers might ingest pesticides sprayed onto flowers, which could sicken or kill the birds.

Then there are the nectar feeders that you hang in several areas in your yard. Keep your feeder where it can easily be seen. In warmer weather, look for a shady area. I prefer to hide the feeders from one another and place them around the opposite side of the house. The birds are known to fight over them if they are all in one view. The nectar you fill the feeders with should be one-fourth white sugar to three-fourths boiled water. Do not add food color, and never use honey in place of sugar, as it can develop a fungus which can be fatal to hummingbirds. Be sure to cool the nectar water before filling a feeder.

Keep your sugar water fresh. Replace the solution every two days in very hot weather. You can mix your own cleaning solution by adding a small amount of vinegar or chlorine bleach to hot water. If there are black spots inside the feeder, put a little rice inside with the cleaning solution and shake it clean. Next, rinse, rinse, rinse and rinse some more. The feeders should be emptied, cleaned and refilled with fresh nectar water once a week.

To repel ants, apply vinegar or powdered cloves to ant trails. Put adhesive tape applied sticky-side-out to the hanging wire or pole.

It is better to have several smaller feeders instead of one larger feeder. This will reduce the chance for one hummingbird to dominate the feeder and chase others off. Feeders should be kept up for approximately one month after the last hummingbird has been spotted. In some locations, an occasional hummingbird may stay over the winter. Look out for these.

Hummingbirds also appreciate available water from a bird bath, water fountain, dripper or a low-flow mister. Moving water is ideal, but if you do not have such facilities, you will need to keep it as clean as possible. Hummers are known to like leaf baths, where they perch on or near a wet leaf and let the water flow over them.

Leaving your hummingbird feeders up will not stop the hummers from migrating. They may begin moving south as early as July, but it will take several months to reach the southern U.S. They will use your feeders during their trip. Shorter days, not lack of food will tell the hummingbirds when to begin their journey.
Sources:

http://www.hummingbirdsonly.com/
http://www.birds-n-garden.com/how_to_attract_hummingbirds.html
http://www.hummingbirds.net/faq.html
http:''how to enjoyhummingbirds.com/attracting_hummingbird%205.htm
http://www.hummingbirds.net/attract.html