Hummingbird Attractors

Ruby-throated Hummingbird, by taffyknits (me!)

I have a customer who likes to have hummingbirds visit her garden, and she makes sure many of her plants are nectar sources for these teeny birds, in addition to the feeders she puts out.
She stopped by and got an Ultraviolet Sage, and told me she would definitely get the Ruttya Fruticosa if I knew for sure whether or not hummingbirds like it. My husband calls it Jammy Mouth, but everywhere else I've found it, it's called Rabbit Ears.

Ruttya Fruticosa or Rabbit Ears. Large evergreen shrub in zones 8-11 that flowers year-round if there is no frost. For you snowbirds, it's a good houseplant during the winter, and you can put it outside in the summer for birds to feed on the blooms!

Well, in researching this plant, I found a whole bunch of other plants we carry that will attract hummingbirds, and I got so excited about it, it's my theme for my booth in Lakeland, this Saturday at the Curb Market.


Orange Zest Cestrum (small tree/large shrub with leaves that smell like peanut butter!)

The one plant that surprised me, though Jim already knew it, was Red Yucca. It's supposed to bloom in the summertime, but for some reason one in our nursery felt happy and it's blooming. It shoots out a 5-ft tall stalk with showers of pink flowers all over it. It's in the agave family, so aloe is another one that would be good in a hummingbird garden.


Here's what's on my list to carry:
Salvias! Jim says just about any kind will do, but I have Ultraviolet Sage, Mexican Sage, Compton's Beauty, Scarlet Pineapple Sage, Faye Chapel, and Indigo Spires.

Tacoma Stans, or Yellow Bells - another tall woody shrub that is blooming right now
Cestrum, Orange Zest
Crocossmia (a bulb, orange blooming in the spring)
Cuphea Cigar Plant
Shrimp Plant Fruit Cocktail
Rabbit Ears
Hummingbird Plant
Red Yucca
Black Adder Hyssop (any Agastache member seems to be a great one)
Orange Milkweed
Fire Bush (that's one outside my window where I have spotted Ruby-throated Hummingbirds).
Coral Honeysuckle
Other ones we have but I may or may not bring are day lilies, agapanthus, gayfeather (liatris) and Indian Paintbrush (we only have one and I'm not allowed to sell it)

I think it'll be fun. Butterfly Gardens are a hot topic of conversation, but I'll put a different twist on it with Hummingbird Gardens.

Jim will also have a booth in Lake Wales, at Pioneer Day Festival. It's a lot of fun! Who knew our little town could hold so many people. Come for the architecture tours, the pretty lake scenery and just a cheery festival atmosphere.

Busy, Busy, Busy

I have decided to compare myself with the bee.
Bees are busy and I am busy. In fact, I am as busy as a bee!
The little insect and I share space in the nursery. I often say "excuse me" to a bunch of them as I pick up a plant to move it. Their favorites seem to be the Black Adder Hyssop and the African Blue Basil. They buzz around but we have a peaceful co-existence.



If I were a bee, I'd be the worker bee. I would be female (and I am!) and my job would be to clean, collect pollen and feed the larvae. Not too different than what I do as a human, although I have to admit, I don't clean too much.

Fall is here so the bees are finalizing their pollen gathering, making honey, and preparing for winter, when they huddle together inside the hive and don't leave, eating that honey. Fall for this worker human means preparing for all the fall festivals. In days past, the fall was the harvest season. Although we are more removed from the actual gathering of the harvest, we still celebrate and prepare for the upcoming holiday season with craft festivals, pumpkin patches, and garden shows.

This weekend is Boktoberfest at Bok Tower Gardens (www.boktowergardens.org). Jim works there as a Head Gardener and he has our plants in the Plant Shop. The manager asked him to bring some out, and we've been filling the Great White Whale (van) and trailer with cestrums, grasses, coreopsis, stoppers, fiddle wood, sweet almond bush, just to name a few for the past two days. We have a garden wagon that we have to wheel across the front to the back, load it up with 10 3-gallon sized pots, and wheel it all the way back. There's a slight incline where the septic tank is, and you have to dig your heels into the ground to keep the momentum going.

After Boktoberfest the next weekend is the Garden Extravaganza in Munn Park in Lakeland. That will probably mean getting up at 4 to make a couple of trips back and forth. Jim has been saying we need to move half the plants in the nursery, and I really hope that after these shows that most of those plants don't come home!

Did you know that bees can see every color except red? They smell the flowers.

Love

Let's all put on our deepest, smokiest, Barry White voices and discuss.. love.
Here in the nursery we have two kinds of love going on: the twice-yearly swarm of love bugs, and a great fall plant, Love Grass.

There's something about grasses that just says Autumn to me. Maybe it's because I've lived in the south too long and don't get to crunch my feet in leaves and have to do my oak tree raking in the spring. I think too it's the wheat-like bloom so many grasses produce in the fall and that makes me think of harvest time.

Love Grass is also known as Tallahassee Sunset or Tallahassee Skies. It's botanical name is Eragrostis Elliotti, and it's native to the Southeast of the US, as far west as Texas. It's a short grass - not more than two feet high really. But it puts out a great number of blooms and the blades take on pink and blue hues.
In our nursery in the early morning light the row of Love Grass looks like pots that have been shrouded in fog.

The other bit of love going around concerns the birds and the bees, only it's Love Bugs. They spend their larval life underground, but in May and October, they sprout wings, develop pheromones, and zoom out to find a mate. Cars wear special protection over their grills because you can't help but drive into several thousand while on a trip to the store. The splattered remains of the love bugs are supposedly harmful to a car's paint job. I've heard of people freshly waxing their cars or applying a thin spray of oil on the car to make washing them off easier.

Other than that, they are pretty harmless. I even read that the larva are beneficial to the soil and help plants find nourishment easier. They don't bite or sting, just mate. But if you're outside for a long period they land on you and tickle you, and fly in your hair and maybe in your mouth.

Nothing seems to eat love bugs, except me when one goes in my mouth by accident. Maybe a spider when one is caught in the web. My rooster doesn't seem to find them enticing. The larva are enjoyed by birds and armadillos. Imagine how many more could hatch if the larva weren't tasty!

They are really easy to catch and very fragile. Merely brushing them away because of the tickle will cause permanent harm or death to the love bug. The PE teacher at my childrens' elementary school came up with a unique game called Love Bug Tag. The students have to run out to the field, catch love bugs, and when they bring it back to the coach and it is still alive, then they get a prize. I bet she gave out a lot of prizes.

When we first moved here I had painted our porch. The railings were a bright white, and the love bugs loved it. Several hundred gathered there, and completely freaked my older daughter out. She does not enjoy love bug season at all. And she's not the only one. Just the other day a grown woman, a Master Gardener, came out to our nursery, and she really had to work hard to pretend she wasn't bothered by them.

The grasses are blooming, it's definitely fall in Florida, and it's a season we deserve after the long hot summers. Enjoy gardening!