Ditch The Traditional Garden: How To Attract Hummingbirds With Hanging Baskets

Hummingbirds are prized visitors to our yards and gardens, impressing us with their daredevil antics and flashy colors. If you want to draw more hummingbirds into your yard but don't have plans to plant a traditional garden, there's a different process you can use — growing flowers in hanging baskets. There are many different plants you can use for this type of elevated container gardening, including both annuals and perennials.

While many fans of hummingbirds put out feeders to draw them in, the best source of nectar for them comes directly from flowers. Growing a diverse selection of blooms in a traditional flower garden will certainly attract these amazing little birds to your yard, but not everyone has the space, time, or energy to tend to their own in-ground botanical landscape. Hanging baskets can provide a more manageable alternative for attracting hummers, especially if you choose the right types of plants.

The best recipe for attracting hummingbirds with flowers is to choose blooms that are tubular in shape and red or orange in color. There are lots of annuals that grow perfectly in hanging baskets, and some of them make great plants for foraging hummingbirds. You can choose from the gorgeous red blooms of cardinal climber (Ipomoea sloteri), pretty clusters of bright lantana flowers, or the showy floral offerings of geraniums (Pelargonium spp.).  And that's not all. Verbena is a bedding flower you can easily find that grows perfectly in hanging baskets and attracts hummingbirds – pick some with red blooms to really draw them in. Petunias trail beautifully from hanging containers and also provide food for hummers.

Just because you're growing in hanging baskets doesn't mean you have to limit your choice to annuals, although extra protection may be needed to overwinter perennials. Hardy fuchsia (Fuchsia magellanica) is one of the gorgeous hanging basket plants that hummingbirds absolutely love, and you can grow it as a perennial in zones 5 to 10. For zones 3 to 8, you can also count eastern red columbine (Aquilegia canadensis) among the container plants that will entice more hummingbirds to visit your yard or garden. To best serve these bird visitors in your yard, hang your baskets several feet off the ground to protect them from predators, and either 20 feet away from your windows or right next to them. This is to reduce the risk of the birds colliding with the windows when they see vegetation or sky reflected in the glass.