What are your Hummers top 5 favorite plants in your garden? What are your Butterflies top 5 favorite plants in your garden? What's the largest number of Hummers have you had over for a meal and/or drink at one time?
Don LaClair
Humm/butter Poll Top 5 favorite hummer plants top 5 butter/
Well I am not going to win this contest for sure. I seem to mainly attract bees, no stings last year though.
I do not get a lot of hummingbirds. The ones I see go to; Hardy fuscia,French Lace Wiegela, Canna
I get quite a few butterfly's - not a great variety though. The mainly go to;Butterfly bush, Zinnias,Coneflowers,Monarda
we did have a caterpillar on our butterfly weed early in the year :}
I personally have never seen more than 2 hummers at a time.
Al
Hummingbird Plants of special note in our garden last year:
Lobelia Cardinal
Cannas
Four O'Clocks
Coral Honeysuckles
Coral Bells
Buckeye
Butterfly Plants of special note:
Milkweeds
Tithonia (Mexican Sunflower)
Liatris 3 kinds
Monarda
We had about 5 HB feeders out. Perhaps as many as 8-10 HBs in view at once at different feeders in high season (august).
We also offer a plate with a banana and gatorade for extra BF snacks. Our BFs are mainly monarchs, a viceroy here and there, cabbage whites, frits. and other unidentifieds.
I am revamping and adding lots of BF/HB plants this year including lots of new vines. And a water spritzer. Lots of fun.
Here's a link to the thread about BF and HB vines for the garden
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/574099/
This message was edited Feb 5, 2006 9:09 PM
I have a limited Butterfly garden. Nothing beats the Butterfly Bush.
Milkweed and Agastash are good too.
Andy P
Favorite hummer plants- cape honeysuckle, leonotis, salvia guaranitica, red porterweed, justicia-mexican honeysuckle bush.
Favorite butterfly plants-asclepias curassavica, kalanchoe(a red one that is blooming now, old fashioned, about 2ft tall), dutchman's pipevine, passiflora, duranta.
Most hummingbirds at the feeders at one time? I counted 36 one morning at the feeders right at the porch, not counting the ones flying in the yard and at outlying feeders. We are in the "fallout zone" when they come up from South America.
In my yard, for both hummingbirds and butterflies, nothing beats purple coneflowers, echinacea purpurea(sp?).
Nothing beats red milkweed, aslepias incanarta, for monarch caterpillars specifically.
For hummers, I have penstamen, lobelia cardinalis, columbine and silene regia.
I have tons of stuff the butterflies like besides the coneflowers, bee balm, showy golden rod, hoary vervain, black eyed susans, brown eyed susans, lobelia, joepyeweed, culversroot, iron weed, mountain mint....
I cannot count the number of hummers I have seen at the same time at my mother's house. If we count just at the feeders that would be 8, because she has two feeders with 4 holes each. But if you count all the ones that are hovering and bombing each other fighting for their turn plus all the ones that are perched in the nearby sumac trees it would be at least twenty, if not more...
The butterflies in my yard liked Butterfly bushes, Lantana, Zinnias and Marigolds. I am planning on adding some milkweed and Mexican torch this year.
I had forgotten about the Marigolds.
I saw this 'recognizable' Monarch feeding every day for 2 weeks this Fall.
Andy P
Hummingbird #1 favorite: columbine
Butterfly #1 favorite: red zinnia
hummingbirds
-salvia greggii
-zauschnerias
-coral honeysuckle vine
-monkey flower
-jagged lavender/fern leaf lavender
butterfly
-salvia greggii-they cling onto the small flowers and drink
-cosmos
-coreopsis
-lavender