Texas Gardening: Anyone see hummers yet? , 1 by Elphaba

Elphaba wrote:
I've had a hummer resident for at least a month. She was chasing away every other hummer until last week when she made a friend. They both look like females though so I was puzzled by it. I see hummers almost all year round. I had a migrating rufous in December.

I don't do feeders though and I guess those of you who do, don't want to hang them until a lot of hummingbirds are passing through? I read about a feeder fungus that can kill hummers and I didn't want the responsibility of maintaining the feeder so that wouldn't happen. I decided to plant things they love instead.

Since you live near me, if you don't already have abutilons, you might want to get some. They're gorgeous, bloom all year, don't sustain any freeze damage in our climate (although they freeze completely in zones 8 and lower and don't return), and hummers love them. The first time I saw a rufous, we'd had a bad freeze just a day before and most of the things hummers love were dead, but the abutilons weren't and he went to every one of them. Here's a pic of one called Canary Bird with a tall peach one visible in the background. The more bare branches to the right are turk's cap which is similar but freezes.