Although many kinds of birds can benefit from flower gardens and potted plants among your landscaping, hummingbirds may be the most obvious birds attracted by nectar-producing flowers (Anna’s Hummingbird photo by Paul Konrad). These 2 landscaping photos show how flowering plants can transform uniform lawn areas into colorful gardens that benefit birds year-round.

It’s a good time to check out spring landscaping improvements we’ve made, and to consider adding some summer additions to make our yards attractive to birds throughout the coming months. While flower gardens are impressive on their own merits visually, they rise to another dimension when a hummingbirds make our yards part of their regular feeding route. Other birds will be attracted to forage at ground level around flowering plants too, inspecting flower gardens for small insects and other bugs that provide big protein benefits to birds, nestlings, and fledglings.

It’s the peak of growing season in most areas of the country, so it’s a great time to appreciate the rewards of some of the most showy landscaping features in your yard – flowering plants. Adding more flowers – in pots, planters, or in a new garden area is a personal improvement for your yard. It reflects on you and will gain the appreciation of your family, neighbors, visitors, and passersby. It’s a fine time to appreciate how important flowers can be to our psyche by adding colors, shapes, and elevations of flowers.

Ultimately, more seasonal flowering plants for the summer months can be a real contribution to the food resources available to birds. And the collective improvements all birders can make can really add up to be a real conservation boost for birds.

Hummingbirds

In some areas, hummingbirds can be the biggest beneficiaries of flowering plants – both by harvesting nectar from living flowers, and by feeding on small insects attracted to the plants’ leaves and stems. Therefore, whenever possible it’s worthwhile to emphasize adding red, pink, and yellow tube-shaped flowers for hummingbirds. It’s not too soon to get flowering plants established for post-nesting visits of hummingbirds that will build in number into migration periods during August and September.

Depending on where you live, certain flowering plants – annuals and perennials – can become hummingbird magnets, but even an occasional visit from a single hummingbird can add a little thrill to your summer days. At the top of the list of “hummingbird plants” are flowering trumpet vines, red salvia, red cardinal flower, bee balm, trumpet honeysuckle, hummingbird trumpet, scarlet trumpet, lupine, flowering tobacco, and more. You can double-check what flowering plants attract hummingbirds in your area from your state of local Audubon chapter, a wild birds store, or other birders too.

When hummingbirds react to your new flowering plants, you will probably react by adding more of those plants until you have a true hummingbird garden! Flower gardens often grow in increments, and they can spill over into other areas of your yard too. One more reminder is to please refrain from using pesticides and herbicides in your yard, for obvious reasons that they are poisons, and will affect the quality of foods (flower nectar and tiny bugs) that hummingbirds need.

Spring to Summer Blooms

In our yard, we see that our landscaping efforts are really paying off this spring, and it’s inspiring to the point that it makes us want to do more – dedicate more areas to flowering plants – large (bushes and trees) and small (hummingbird plants and vines). A visit to a local greenhouse will inspire you even more to add a variety of splashes of color and textures to your yard – it happened to us, and the birds will benefit from every plant we add.

At this point in the season, it’s best to buy plants that are already blooming from a local nursery, and the professionals there can help with local favorites. It’s always fun to drop by a greenhouse or another plant supply store to see what’s in bloom now, and ask: “What flowers will the days of July and August produce; and what plants will continue blooming into fall?”

It’s also a great time to expand existing garden areas, or add a new flower garden to an “empty corner” of your yard. As birders, many of us are thinking beyond monotonous expanses of mowed lawn. It’s rewarding to fill in some empty spaces with plants that will improve the look for you and guests, while improving your backyard habitat for birds.

Some of the basics to consider include arranging gardens and landscaping with short plants in the front and sides, taller plants in the rear, and medium-tall plants in between. You will have fun getting creative with your color choices and mixes. Create circles and ovals of color, and curved borders to replace traditional straight lines or borders of planted flowers.

In some cases you may have older bushes that have grown upward, leaving their lower branches bare. We like to add a new lower level of flowering plants that can provide another level of cover, foraging areas, and a touch of color to liven up your view. You can plant similar borders around some of your trees at ground level, accenting the tree trunks.

We also like to emphasize planting some food-producing flowering plants for birds, especially black oil sunflowers that produce a large circular head of seeds, which is preceded by an equally large yellow sunflower bloom. This is a favorite project to share with children, and while it may be late to plant seeds, area greenhouses often sell potted flowering sunflowers during mid-summer. It’s great fun to provide birds with sunflower seeds left on the plant, allowing them to harvest their own seeds from the big sunflower heads. The more sunflowers you plant, the longer they will attract and benefit birds; and the seeds should mature in time to entice some fall migrants to stop over.

Potted Plants

We also emphasize the potential of potted flowering plants that can really add a “pop” of color via the pots you select and the flowers you plant in them. Potted flowering plants, or even a small flowering bush in a large pot can add a focal point to your patio, balcony, porch, or even your bird feeding station. It’s always fun to introduce colorful pots filled with a variety of colorful flowers – and you can move them anytime, mixing and matching as you wish.

Decorative pots can add design, style, and color to any location in your yard, and they can attract hummingbirds – especially if you have red tubular flowers – but other birds will search for insects on the plants’ leaves, stems, and flowers too. We have one area of our yard where we position 3 large pots of cascading heights together to add dimension and a point of interest. At this time of the season, your spring plantings may be flourishing; but if not, now you can replant if you a plant dies or if a plant’s flowering season has passed. You can also add a succession of new flowering potted plants throughout the summer.

Of course, it’s best to make sure there is at least one drainage hole in each flower pot, and it’s always a good idea to place each pot in a saucer that will hold water that drains through the planter (the plant will also absorb water from the saucer). Like the flowers themselves, the vessels you plant them in can add color and design to your outdoor space. Put the powers of flowers to work in your yard, and you may even inspire others to add flower decor to their yards – the more the better.

Share your backyard birding experiences and photos with The Birding Wire at editorstbw2@gmail.com