Summer 2017 Update

“Like the hummingbird sipping nectar from every flower, I fly joyfully through my days, seeing beauty in everything.” Amethyst Wyldfyre

Hi Everyone,

The spring and summer have just flown by and now mid-summer is upon us!  The reason we are so late in getting this update out to you is because of a very heavy travel schedule (we were in Oklahoma, Arizona, Spain, and New York City!) this spring and early summer and my father’s illness.  Getting our garden planted and established is always a top priority as the hummingbirds start to arrive in our garden.  We have been very busy planting and obtaining the best plants for our hummingbird guests from mail order nurseries far and wide and from local nurseries (many had some outstanding offerings this spring and we even gave an informal program about Hummingbird Gardening at Klein’s Floral for the first time in May.)

We know that all of you are seeing hummingbirds at your feeders and flowers by now---our first hummingbird was seen on May 9, which is very similar to 2016.  Interestingly, for the first time our hummingbirds and Screech Owls overlapped a little this season, with the Screech Owls leaving our yard around the same time that hummingbirds started to arrive.  Typically, we don’t see Screech Owls in our nest box past March, but we put up two more boxes this spring and this encouraged them to stay longer and we even had several days with two owls in the boxes on one day---very exciting stuff!!

Anyhow, now it’s all about hummingbirds and we’ve also expanded a little to also attract more butterflies to our garden.  We were very inspired by a program about the declining Monarch Butterfly population presented at the recent WPT Garden Expo and decided to plant Swamp Milkweed and a few other butterfly favorites along with our hummingbird flowers.  Despite the milder winter, all but one of our Butterfly Bushes died and we are trying to get new ones established now for late season butterflies and hummingbirds.  After a nice spring migration, hummingbird sightings were a little bit slow in July, but they are picking up nicely as the young begin to leave the nest.  We are also seeing a few butterflies as well.  Of course, Scarlet Bee Balm is a favorite flower of both hummingbirds and butterflies right now, but salvias are becoming more popular.

All of the rain this spring has really created some nice opportunities and also some challenges in our garden.  Of course, some plants such as Monarda, Canna, Cuphea, Hosta, Salvia guaranitica, and Jewelweed are loving all of this moisture and other plants are not enjoying it as much.  If you came to visit our garden now, you would be amazed by the sheer height of Jewelweed, Hosta, and Policeman’s Helmet plants.  That is the challenge of gardening in the Upper Midwest, you never know what nature has in store and you have accept whatever she decides to deliver.  We only hope that some of our tender heat loving plants will bloom this season given the lack of sun and warmth (not to speak of the constant expansion of shade in our area because of city and neighbors’ trees---hostas are beginning to be our new friends---ah, a plant that blooms in the shade and attracts hummingbirds!)  Now we are in more of a dry period in terms of rain---it’s either feast or famine in Wisconsin with precipitation it seems!

This update will contain important information about our upcoming Hummingbird Garden Tours in September, reminders and information about maintaining hummingbird feeders, and some other interesting explorations of hummingbird attracting and gardening. 

We sincerely hope that all of you will enjoy your summer and early fall experiences with hummingbirds and gardening and fun summer times with family and friends.  If you have questions about anything, please e-mail or call us at any time and we hope to see you at one of our upcoming Hummingbird Garden Tours in September!

Best Wishes,

Kathi & Michael

UPCOMING HUMMINGBIRD GARDEN TOURS

Our 2017 Hummingbird Garden Tours at our home will occur on SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 10 from 1-5:30 p.m. (door prize drawing at 3 p.m.) and WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13 from 3-7 p.m. (door prize drawing at 5 p.m.)  Another notice with more information will be sent out later in August and information will always be available on our website, hummingbirdgardening.net.  We hope that you will be able to join us for one or both of the tours.  If you cannot attend either tour and want to see our garden, please contact us to arrange a very informal tour at another time.

HUMMINGBIRD FEEDER UPDATE

Properly maintained hummingbird feeders are an integral part of your efforts to bring hummingbirds to your property.  So often, people ask us if they can just plant a few perennials and attract lots of hummingbirds.  The answer to that question for most of us is an emphatic “No.”  In our northern climate, it would be almost impossible to find enough perennials that really attract hummingbirds to cover the entire season, early May through mid-October.  Also, feeders fill in on the days when nectar in the flowers is unavailable, spring before hummingbird plants begin blooming, a very cold day, a very hot day, a rainy day, or in fall after the first frost.  Hummingbird feeders are always available, no matter what the weather or time of the year (unless they are frozen in winter!).  Also, hummingbird feeders with their red coloring (the nectar should be clear though) serve as an identification of your property as hummingbird-friendly---you might be interested to know that hummingbirds can see red for up to a mile away, have excellent memories, and probably return to the place where they hatched each year (there are many fun stories of hummingbirds “knocking” on the window with their bills to let their human hosts know that they are back and hungry!)

“How many feeders should I hang?” is another common question.  The answer that everyone needs to hear first is only put up as many feeders as you can properly maintain (that means cleaning regularly as well as changing the nectar solution.)  And, place all feeders in places where you can easily view them from your home.  If you live in an urban area, MORE feeders will be needed to bring in hummingbirds on a daily basis---we have seven feeders up right now, and all get used and some more than others.  By mid-September, we will have as many as 20 hummingbird feeders up!  If we lived in a rural or wooded area, we absolutely would not need to work this hard!

If you have a very territorial, aggressive hummingbird, put feeders on the opposite side of your home  so the “bully” cannot see the other feeder and that way everyone has a chance to feed in peace (as much as hummingbirds can have peace!)

As more flowers begin blooming in late July and August, the feeders become less important, but please don’t take them down.  Many hummingbirds will still use them at any time of the year when they need a quick shot of reliable energy or the weather has taken a bad turn.  One late summer day, we saw an immature Ruby-throat rest on a feeder for almost 30 minutes at the end of the day.  With their fast metabolisms, hummingbirds face an energy crisis quite often, especially very young birds.  Feeders are a great fall back and safeguard for your hummingbird friends.

We reprint the following information about use and maintenance of hummingbird feeders from a past E-Update:

HUMMINGBIRD FEEDERS 101---ALL THE "INS AND OUTS" OF HUMMINGBIRD FEEDERS

The diet of hummingbirds consists of small insects and nectar. You faithful readers of the Nectar
News are well aware of the different kinds of flowers that provide sweet nectar for the hummingbirds. But when the hummers return from their winter homes in April and May, there are no blooming flowers in Wisconsin that are attractive to hummingbirds. We may like to look at daffodils and crocus and tulips, but those are not hummingbird flowers. So, to maximize the number of hummingbirds in your yard throughout the season, one must have hummingbird feeders. Here is a quick primer on the
feeders that have worked well in our yard and the care of the feeders.

Feeder styles: There are two basic feeder styles: bottle feeders in which the nectar is above the feeder ports or saucer style feeders.

In the bottle feeder category: a workhouse feeder that has been in existence for many years is the Perky Pet Pinch Waste Feeder
(http://www.birdfeeders.com/store/hummingbird-feeders/bhbpwf), also known as the Perky Pet 4 Fountains feeder. This feeder is widely available at retailers such as hardware stores, home improvement stores and birding stores. If you have this feeder in your yard, you are guaranteed to see hummingbirds use it. One drawback of this feeder isthat if it blows in the wind, the nectar will slosh out of the feeder
ports.

A feeder that we have used extensively with much success is the First Nature Hummingbird Feeder
(http://www.amazon.com/First-Nature-Hummingbird-Feeder-16Ounce/dp/B005XOZKC6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1463470025&sr=8-1&keywords=first+nature+hummingbird+feeder). These feeders have 10 feeding ports with holes that are in a horizontal position, so when the wind blows, nectar does not slosh out of these feeders. We have found that the hummingbirds use this feeder to a high degree. One disadvantage of this feeder is that the feeding port holes are large oval shapes..... large enough for yellow jackets to fly into the nectar. First Nature has redesigned this feeder to have smaller round holes with yellow bee guards. You may see this licensed under the name Mainstays Hummingbird Feeder. It remains to be seen if this feeder is used as much as the original First Nature design. You can find this feeder at stores such as Walmart and Fleet Farm.

Another bottle style feeder is the Dr. JB's Clean Feeder (http://www.drjbs.com/). This feeder is made of very durable plastic and a hardened glass bottle. The feeder ports on this feeder are oriented such
that the nectar does not slosh out in a strong wind. This feeder is widely available at retailers such as Wild Birds Unlimited and Mounds Pet Food Warehouse.

In the saucer style category, a company that makes many of these feeders is Aspects (http://www.aspectsinc.com/2_HumFdrs.html). These feeders will not leak nectar in a strong wind. Although we have seen some use of these feeders in our yard, the saucer style feeders are not used as much as the Perky Pet 4 Fountains or the First Nature Hummingbird Feeders. These feeders are available at hardware stores and Wild Birds Unlimited.

There are dozens of styles of hummingbird feeders. We only mention the feeders above as these have been used in our yard and we can attest that they are good feeders. You will likely have success with almost any kind of feeder. However, we do not have any experience with the fancy
glass blown feeders that have a single spigot feeding port. In our discussions with other hummingbird enthusiasts, we have heard that hummers do not use these feeders very much and that they can be very difficult to clean.  The best hummingbird feeder one that attracts hummingbirds AND is easy to clean.

Nectar
Now that you have your feeders, it is time to add nectar. Many of the pictures of feeders shown in the web sites listed above contain nectar with red dye. The dye is not necessary, as there is enough red on the feeder to attract the hummingbirds. So, you can either buy a commercial nectar mix, or make your own nectar. We do the latter by mixing a ratio of 4 parts water to 1 part sugar. The water can be boiled, or hot water out of the tap. (One could also use room temperature or cold water, but the sugar will take longer to dissolve compared to hot water.) Stir in the sugar until it is totally dissolved, and then place in your feeder. We do not fill our feeders to the top because we do not have enough hummingbirdsto drain our feeders. We only place enough nectar in the feeders to
last until the next nectar change, as often as every 2-3 days during hot, humid weather or at least every 4-5 days.   Changing the nectar isnecessary, as otherwise, the nectar will become cloudy, sour, and moldy.

The feeders also need to be cleaned. One can purchase different mops and brushes to clean the feeders. Alternatively, a 10 to 1 mixture of water and bleach can be used to soak the feeders for approximately 10 minutes. This is very effective at eliminating any mold.

Lastly, it is time to hang your feeders. We place our feeders at approximately eye level. Place the feeders where you can see them and enjoy watching nature's flying jewels in your yard. In our opinion, the more feeders that you have, the more hummingbirds will be attracted to your yard. This may not be exceedingly important if one lives in the country near ideal nesting habitat. For those of us living in the city, we think that a large number of feeders helps us to see hummingbirds during most days of the late spring, summer and early fall (as late as November 17 in 2010---without feeders we would have not seen these late hummingbirds as all of our flowers had died or ceased blooming due to cold weather and frost). At the height of the fall migration, we maintain over 20 feeders in our yard.

In June of this year we gave a program about Hummingbird Vision at the University of Wisconsin Arboretum.  To enhance our informational booth about hummingbirds, we developed some fact sheets about attracting hummingbirds.  We will share that information with you here to help you in your efforts this season.

THE BEST HUMMINGBIRD HABITAT

THE BEST HUMMINGBIRD HABITAT---

      FEATURES MANY MATURE TREES

      FEATURES THICK SHRUBBERY FOR PERCHING AND ESCAPE FROM PREDATORS

      UTILILIZES WELL MAINTAINED HUMMINGBIRD FEEDERS & THE BEST FLOWERS FOR HUMMINGBIRDS FROM LATE APRIL THROUGH EARLY OCTOBER

      OFFERS BOTH NATIVE PLANTS & NON-INVASIVE EXOTICS

      NO PESTICIDE USE---HUMMINGBIRDS DEPEND ON SMALL SOFT-BODIED INSECTS FOR SURVIVAL!!

      OFFERS CLEAN, MOVING, SHALLOW WATER

      SOMETHING GREAT FOR HUMMINGBIRDS IS ALWAYS IN BLOOM!!

      FLOWERS AND FEEDERS ARE PLACED WHERE THE HOMEOWNER CAN SEE AND ENJOY THEM!!

THE BEST FLOWERS FOR HUMMINGBIRDS

THE BEST FLOWERS FOR HUMMINGBIRDS---

      ARE TUBULAR IN SHAPE

      BLOOM WHEN HUMMINGBIRDS ARE IN YOUR AREA

      ARE RED OR ORANGE (SOMETIMES BLUE OR PURPLE)

      CONTAIN NECTAR

      WILL GROW WELL IN YOUR SOIL AND LIGHTING CONDITIONS

      PLANTS OFFER MANY CONSTANTLY REGENERATING FLOWERS FOR ALL DAY FEEDING

PLANT SOME HUMMINGBIRD FAVORITES!

Below is a “short list” of hummingbird favorite plants for the Upper Midwest:

Perennials:

-Lonicera sempervirens (Trumpet Honeysuckle)

-Nepeta (tall varieties such as Audre D’Chadron and ‘Six Hills Giant’)

-Monarda ‘Jacob Kline’

-Impatiens capensis (Spotted Jewelweed)

-Lobelia cardinalis

-Agastache (could be perennial or annual)

-Silene regia (Royal Catchfly)

-Buddleia (Butterfly Bush)

Annuals:

-Cuphea ‘David Verity’ or ‘Vermillionaire’

-Salvia guaranitica

-Salvia ‘Wendy’s Wish’

-Canna (wild types such as ‘Indica’ or ‘Robert Kemp’)

-Nicotiana mutablis

-Salvia coccinea