I would love to trade you some bee balm for some umbrella plants.The bee balm is either hot pink,purple or red.I have all the same colors growing in one area because the hummers seems to love all of the color combos,lol.Let me know and thanks for reading.

I've been in my house for six years now. And I think the most important thing we do for birds is we don't use pesticides. Ever. When we first moved in, we saw the occasional mocking bird, cardinal, jay and dove. After three years of no pesticides, we had cardinals, doves, jays, mocking birds and finches all nesting in the yard and Mexican Orioles and Amazon parrots stopping by. We also saw a lot more butterflies and even some hummers. Fast forward another three years and I saw a painted bunting a couple weeks ago. We also have gold finches and several birds I haven't identified yet. And I have a very small yard. Yes, I plant natives wherever I can find room. But I think the most important thing I have done is make sure that there are bugs in my yard. A lot of these birds eat bugs. You can't plant bugs, you just have to put up with them. I caught my cardinals eating caterpillars off dying tomato plants at the end of the season a couple years ago. And I know you can attract cardinals with a good seed mix, but they also need to eat bugs. And I only realized the caterpillar feast was happening because my boy cardinal made so much noise, calling his mate, to let her know that there was a caterpillar feast to be had on the dying tomatoes. This was in April, when the tomatoes are pretty much done down here. Earlier in the season, I would have been out squishing caterpillars, or even spraying with soap. I do what I can to protect tomato plants - but my limit is chemicals. And when the plant is dying, I let it die in the yard, and feed the bugs which feed the birds. I also have one large trees that several birds nest in every year, and I have shrubs - some birds won't nest up high. They want low shrubs. And even birds who nest up high, like cardinals, need shrubs nearby for when they kick the babies out of the nest.

Pankhi...This year was the first nesting in our pine tree that I have ever seen.This Mama Hummer is on her second batch! She made 2 nests in 2 different pine trees about 20 ft apart, so I guess I can say they like large pine trees and some bushtits are about 5 ft from her in the same tree!! The nest have been within 10 to 12 ft off the ground in the lower branches so we can see the nest real well. The first babies did great despite all our rain and hail the last of Feb.I was worried.I will try and post a picture in the gallery!I have a small pond that has been in about 6 years, so you have to be patient. I have a feeder and other plants that attract hummers.I am not too sure how many species you have in your area and the likelyhood of them breeding in your area. Check out hummingbirds.net it has ALOT of hummer info! Happy bird watching! Pam

In my yard, they like the different aloes that I have growing, and these bloom mostly around winter, from November through January or February. They love the neighbor's bottle brush tree across the street, which attracts swarms of hummers. They also like my bromeliads and tillandsia, but the tillandsia flowers do not last very long. I have one bromeliad (which has multiplied) that will tolerate full sun, and they especially like that one - photo below. Lars