May | June 2010 INDUSTRY NEWS Put out mat for springtime


by April Reese Sorrow University of Georiga


hummingbirds


Hummingbirds will soon make their way back to Georgia after wintering in Central America. Welcome them to your house by providing their favorite plants and the right food in the right places.


Attract and maintain


“Think like a hummingbird,” said Paul Thomas, a floriculture specialist with the University of Georgia Cooperative Extension.


They spend a great deal of their life in the tropics living in the tree canopies. Providing them a similar habitat will increase the chances of them setting up housekeeping in your backyard. Remember, they can be spotted as late as January in some areas. They usu- ally return in March.


If a male hummingbird sees the native plant horse chestnut, or Aesculus glauca, he knows the area is suitable habitat. Males are attracted to bright-red flowers like those on Lonicera sempervirens, or the native honeysuckle.


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Later in the summer, babies prefer flowers such as Sal- via guaranitica, or blue sage, which are blue. Planting a variety of flowers that provide nectar all summer long will give them a nice area for breeding.


Other recommended plants are red flowering chest- nut, abelias, summer phlox, chaste tree, columbine, cardinal flower, bee balm, red hot poker, hibiscus and most salvias.


In addition to planting appropriate flowers, provide stable artificial nectar sources. “Have a feeder present and ready during migration, or they will fly right by,” Thomas said.


Place a few feeders in the open for males, but put twice as many in the tree canopy for females. “That way the females don’t have to compete with the males for food and then are usually very successful at rais- ing a new brood,” he said.


Female hummingbirds naturally look for wooded ar- eas near nectar sources for nesting.


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