Plants for Hummingbirds

Showing 81–84 of 88 results

  • Spigelia marilandica Carolina pink, Woodland pinkroot Z 5-9

    Stems topped with showy red tubes and fireworks-like yellow, five-pointed stars flare  atop the tubes in  late spring to early summer  and later in the north.  Deadhead for rebloom

    $10.95/bareroot

    Buy

    Stems topped with showy red tubes and fireworks-like yellow, five-pointed stars flare  atop the tubes in  late spring to early summer  and later in the north.  Deadhead for rebloom

    Size: 12-24” x 6-18”
    Care: part to full shade in most well-drained soil, tolerates wet soil
    Native: NJ to Fl west to TX
    Wildlife Value: nectar for hummingbirds; deer resistant
    Awards: 2011 Theodore Klein Plant Award Winner

    Cherokee used this to purge parasites from intestines. In garden by 1753. Philip Miller’s Dictionary “the plant “is esteemed as the best medicine (in North America) yet known for the worms.” (1768)  According to Jacob Bigelow in American Medical Botany, 1817 one doctor used it as a purgative and another as a narcotic.

  • Sporobolus heterolepsis Prairie dropseed Zone 3 – 9

    Mound of graceful thinnest of grass blades

    $10.95/bareroot

    Buy

    The description in the Chiltern Seeds catalog cannot be improved:  “This is the most elegant and refined of the North American prairie grasses …the finest texture composed of the thinnest of thin, thread-like, glossy green blades,.. in autumn turning deep orange before fading to a light copper for the winter.  In late summer the plants bear, on very slender stalks high above the foliage, unbelievably delicate, graceful flower panicles, excellent for cutting.”

    Size: 2’ x 2’
    Care: Full sun in well-drained soil
    Native: from Canada in the north to Texas in the south, Wisconsin native

    Sporobolos is Greek from sporo meaning seed and ballein meaning to cast forth because the seed readily falls from the flower (or dropseed, the common name).  Ojibwa “Medicine Society” used roots to cure sores & “remove bile.”

  • Stachys minima syn. Stachys spathulata Dwarf betony Z 5-9

    Emerging from a rosette of charming crinkly leaves, spikes of pink-purple trumpets bloom generously from June – July.

    $8.25/pot

    Buy

    Emerging from a rosette of charming crinkly leaves, spikes of pink-purple trumpets bloom generously from June – July.

    Size: 2-6” x 15-18”
    Care: sun to part shade in well-drained to moist well-drained soil
    Native: South Africa
    Wildlife Value: Walnut tolerant, deer resistant, hummingbird plant

    Stachys is an old Greek word meaning “spike.”  This species collected from the wild before 1834.

  • Stachys officinalis syn. Betonica officinalis syn. Stachys betonica Bishop’s wort, Betony Z 4-8

    Showy reddish-purple spikes of two-lipped tubes in May and June

    $10.95/bareroot

    Buy

    Showy reddish-purple spikes of two-lipped tubes in May and June

    Size: 18-24” x 12-18” slowly spreading
    Care: sun in moist well-drained soil
    Native: Europe and Asia
    Wildlife Value: deer & walnut tolerant, attracts hummingbirds

    Once one of the most honored herbal medicines. Medicines were good if they had “as many virtues as Betony.” John Sauer, Colonial herbalist claimed “there is no illness brought on by cold in which Betony cannot be administered effectively.”