Think Like A Hummingbird

     The magic doesn't just happen at some point in summer without a large amount of planning well before. Sure, you can limit yourself to a simple setup and be somewhat successful, but to become a serious hummingbirder, trust me, it doesn't start with just hanging a feeder and hoping for great results. Hummingbirds are territorial birds, so they will find a location that meets all their needs before they call it home. If your garden, with limited food sources, is a long distance away from their territory, it'll benefit them in no way to expend an enormous amount of energy traveling to that limited source of food, to gain less than what is needed to travel back. Make it worth their while! 
       I know there are many others out there that start their indoor planting months before the hummingbirds arrive. We plant enough to create a smorgasbord of nectar that spans from one end of our garden to the other. We have about 25 large garden pots that get stuffed with annuals. This also doesn't include the thousands of perennials in our garden that each have their own blooming season throughout summer. To fill 25 large garden pots it can definitely be costly, so there are solutions to reduce that cost, but also to enjoy the process. We start indoor planting in January with a variety of proven annuals that are not only hardy but also great hummingbird attractors. Many plants require 12 to 16 weeks indoors before moving outdoors. Many plants can be directly seeded, and there are a few great choices that can fill many locations with just direct seeding. Scarlet runners and vining nasturtiums are two annuals that I heavily rely on and plant in several locations around the garden just from seed. They don't need as much growing time before they start to flower as the others that are started indoors well before the season. It can be 3 to 4 months indoors and then 3 to 4 months outdoors worth of effort in my region of the continent to develop a garden that's guaranteed to attract the hummingbirds. All I can say is spend some extra time developing extra sources of food, make sure you have numerous feeders hanging throughout the garden, enjoy the process, and you'll soon realize that the extra effort will pay off far more than just hanging a feeder and hoping for great results. Think like a hummingbird, if that's possible, and imagine the possibilities throughout your garden that would make you want to stick around and return to that special place.
       This young hummingbird from last Fall spent half the time feeding from these Delphiniums, and spent the other half of its time defending them from other hummingbirds.  August 2021, N.E. of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

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