by Lydia Holley August 4, 2025
One of my greatest joys is seeing hummingbirds feeding on the plants in my garden. I have tried to incorporate an abundance of plants they are attracted to, but I wish I would have made a garden specifically to attract these lively birds. If you are interested in making a hummingbird garden, here are a variety of plants to consider.
Trees add structure, and they will do double-duty if you choose those that flower. Consider a desert willow, flowering crabapple, mimosa, red buckeye, or vitex.
Shrubs that attract hummingbirds include abelia, butterfly bush, hardy hibiscus, Indian hawthorne, rose of Sharon, and Texas sage. I have always loved abelias, as they grow in sun or shade, are evergreen, and many have colorful foliage. They are worth growing even if they are not in a hummingbird garden.
Most people think of perennials to attract hummingbirds, and there are a number of perennials which do. Consider filling in your hummingbird garden with agastache, bee balm, canna lily, coneflower, crocosmia, daylily, firebush, flame acanthus, gladiolus, lantana, penstemon, phlox, spider lily, Texas star hibiscus, turk’s cap, and yarrow. I cannot imagine a Texas garden without lantana or coneflowers, but turk’s cap, though possibly not as popular, will grow in sun or shade, comes in pink or red, and has an unusual bloom. It has become one of my favorite perennials. My flame acanthus, however, has been the latest favorite of the hummingbirds in my garden. They fight over it like little children grappling for the last spoonful of cookie batter.
Salvias deserve to be mentioned separately, as there are numerous salvias, all which generally attract hummingbirds. No hummingbird garden would be complete without a few. Also called sage, consider planting autumn sage, Indigo Spires, mealy blue sage, Mexican bush sage, and scarlet sage.
To fill in with annuals that also attract hummingbirds, consider cardinal flower, flowering tobacco, four o’clocks, impatiens, larkspur, nasturtium, and petunias.
Lastly, flowering vines are attractive to hummingbirds and keep them high above ground if you happen to also have cats. Consider growing cross vine, cypress vine, honeysuckles, passionflower, and trumpet vine. Of those, cross vine is my favorite. It flowers in the spring just as the hummingbirds are arriving, and again in the fall, just for their migration southward.
Everyone loves to see hummingbirds in their gardens. Many feed them sugar water to attract them. But if you have enough plants, they will show up without you having to rely upon a mixture.
For more information, call 903-675-6130, email [email protected], or visit txmg.org/hendersonmg.