The two best plants I've found for hummingbirds are Salvia' Black and Blue' and Salvia 'Amistad'.

You'll get lots of them! With Monarda, I let it spread a bit but pull out the small plants in early spring where I don't want them, They're not hard to get out then.

What zone are you gardening in Callirhoe? I love those two Salvias, but my soil is a little on the heavy side and I'm in zone 6a and they are not hardy here.

So, Maybe I could keep a patch of Monarda and just edge it every spring?

I can relate, my Raspberry Wine does the same thing, and I think like you're thinking. BUT I don't do anything and they look so purty in August that I forget what I should be doing....

Rginnie, mine are Raspberry Wine too. They are pretty. Sometimes they get mildew though.

Yes you could easily keep it to the size of patch you want by shovel pruning if it goes in a direction you don't want.

Crocosmia 'Lucifer' is a magnet for hummers. Lobelia cardinalis and Lonicera 'Dropmore Scarlet' are big hits. They enjoy Hosta flowers too. I love hummers and plant everything I can for them that is hardy here!

rouge check the map at journeynorth.org to see the progress of their spring migration. Hummingbird lovers report their sightings so you can see how far they've come.

Made my day 'cecily'...thanks for that.

(Taking a quick look I see what appears to be an outlier sighting ie April 2/2024 in Geneva New York)

I'm in 6a also. I just buy a few small plants each spring:)

Callirhoe, I'll have to look for some. I wish they would sell them in 6 packs. I do use Cuphea Vermillionaire and that was the first plant that drew them into the yard. And I discovered this year, that I can overwinter it in the house. I have one to put out this spring.

Peren.all - I have been considering Crocossmia, and I bought Lonicera 'Major Wheeler and it died on me. Which surprised me. And if the rabbits would leave my hostas alone....they have some nice flowers. Thanks!

Try Phlox Jeana, it's a hummingbird and Swallowtail magnet. It grows to around 5ft tall and about 3ft wide. The day I brought my first one home I sat the pot on my patio to grab the shovel out of the garage and when I walked back into the yard there was hummingbird on it. They are very reliable and the Swallowtails also love it. IIt is the highest rated Phlox at Mt. .Cuba. I have 3 of them and have never seen a speck of powdery mildew on any of .

Thank you BeesandBlues - I only have one phlox plant- 'Nora Leigh' - a variegated one. I'd love to try another one that is resistant to PM. I'll look for it!

I'm in z5 NY and my hummingbirds go for my monarda, honeysuckle vine, solomon's seal, lantana, impatiens, tall phlox, hosta flowers, etc.

Monarda behavior seems to be location and soil type-dependent.

I had a nice patch of purple Monarda that didn't spread significantly and was mostly wiped out after a -9F winter low.

Salvia "Black and Blue" and other supposedly "tender" Salvias have repeatedly sailed through winters here in central Kentucky (once zone 6b, now designated 7a). 'Amistad' was knocked out last winter but has tolerated subzero readings and returned previously. I take cuttings of potentially susceptible Salvias as insurance.

Ugh, my friend gave me some purple monarda and it ran horribly for me and then the roots broke easily when I tried to control it. It ran so badly that I ripped it out before the season was over.

This reddish/pink monarda tries to run, but it's easy for me to yank out, and sometimes, it's just better to let things run. :)

PMusic - Thanks, I think the biggest part of my problem is I have so little area of the garden that is full sun, that I just don't have enough of any of these plants. And I’ve had Monarda for years, but just not a lot of it. I’ve had honeysuckle and Solomon’s Seal for years and they never drew a hummingbird that I know of. But I am still trying to get a couple of different Honeysuckle going.

That’s a pretty combination with the Monardaand lily.

RustyB - Pretty sure I am still a 6b here. I should try to do that. Take cuttings of the salvias and leave some in the ground to see if they will get through the winter. Do you mulch yours?

One thing that helped me as I was learning about monarda is that it is in the mint family. So it’s spread and habit is the same. I heard Margaret Roach say the best maintenance is to actually go in and ‘disturb’ - pull up chunks of those fibrous roots for a good culling. Made good sense to me because I learned to do the same with my mint in pots - remove 75% of it and discard.

Have you tried pineapple sage? A beautiful plant, that will grow from a small seedling to a huge clump at the end of the season. The only problem is that in my zone the flowers are very late forming (usually October). When I first planted them I had no idea they even flowered, and then to top it off got the shock of my morning when this buzzy thing made a nosedive for them on my porch!

Oh wow, LaLennoxa, I did not know they were part of the mint family! That explains a lot...lol. I have carefully avoided putting mint in the ground, so maybe I've made a mistake to put Monarda in my front bed. It's really a display bed by the street with a lot of different perennials, shrubs and grasses and a few veggies. It would seem that Monarda might be more suited to a large open area with other wildflowers where it can travel to it's heart's content and compete with other plants with the same tendencies that would keep them in bounds.

Right now mine are planted in a large patch of Penstemon with Lilies that come up through them. The Penstemon reseed a lot and I've left them to do that. But I hope to get it all under better control this year. I've had them there together for awhile without a huge problem. As a matter of fact, I thought everything else was outcompeting the Monarda, until I opened up a small vegetable bed next to them with open soil, last Fall. I was planning to use for veggies this spring. I should take a photo of how they crept into that bed.

I wonder if anyone has ever had trouble removing them from their garden?

I keep forgetting about pineapple sage. It also is very fragrant, right? I think I have the same problem wtih late blooming, but I should try it and see if I can get a decent bloom period in the fall. I forgot that hummers like them.

I planted mine in my front garden bed, because that’s the sunny one. It’s also a tiny, postage-sized 9x13 bed, with 2 driveways, the house and the sidewalk surrounding it. So nothing really “travels” too far. Besides, you’re lucky on my street if the homeowner throws a handful of hostas in the front. Most homeowners have either dug up their 9x13 front to put in parking, or just left the patch of lawn - in one case I noticed they have actually replaced the small lawn with a very fake astroturf. Anyway, the monarda sits happily among the chelone and lilies and other perennials that I’ve thrown in there. But I generally go in and cull as the season progresses. I can’t really remember the pineapple sage blooms as bring fragrant, maybe because they appear so late. But of course the leaves have that gentle pineapple taste. During the height of the pandemic it was that one herb which no one seemed to stock, probably because it’s not on the top 10 list.

That's why I grow out front, it's the only place I have full sun. My bed is a little bigger than yours, about 20x15ft. Not all that large. And it does have street on one side, walkway on another and driveway on a third, lawn on the 4th. But, I just can't have it run over everything in the bed. That would make a LOT of work for me.

I understand, most of my neighbors just have lawn and some foundation shrubs. A neighbor that abuts me, never steps foot in the yard and just let's it run wild. Mows the lawn, hires someone for leave removal in the spring. Poison Ivy everywhere, Bittersweet growing unchecked on a fence. A grove of Maple saplings growing higher than the 6ft fence.

Another neighbor has just grass from lot line to lot line. But there are a few gardeners in the neighborhood. And a young couple moved in about a year ago and I just found out he is growing a garden. I don't know how you stand astroturf...! OMGosh.

I haven't grown Pineapple Sage in years, so I can't remember if it is the flower or the foliage that smells like pineapple. I'll be looking for it this spring.

Ooh, pineapple sage! I grow it every year - a must have. I couldn't care less about the flowers, it rarely flowers for me before the freeze hits, but the leaves, which are reminiscent of pineapple, are wonderful in fruit salads.

I had "Jacob Cline" monarda a few years ago, and it declined over the course of a couple years. I have Mondarda fistula, which is a vigorous grower. It's not as showy as the cultivars, but a valuable native addition and attractive in its own right. I very much like it.

it rarely flowers for me before the freeze hits,

I planted this particular sage for the first time back in 2022. Not knowing its potential size I put it into a pot. But I still had a great time with it and here it was on October 25/2022, able to flower before the frost:

Which types do you think grow best in containers? And tolerate some drying?

Rouge -- those blooms look great! I occasionally get a flower here or there in some years, but more often than not bupkis. Still, I grow for the foliage and its culinary use so don't even care.

Thanks @mxk3 z5b_MI. 10 years and more ago it seemed that we would get frost by Canadian Thanksgiving (October 11). Now we go well into November it seems before we get a killing frost...so more than enough time for these late flowering plants to do their thing.

"Now we go well into November it seems before we get a killing frost..."

It's variable up here, but not as late as November. Couple years ago we had a hard frost in mid-September; other years, it's usually sometime in October.