High Altitude Nature and Gardens – Attracting hummingbirds the safe and beautiful way

By Janet Sellers

The safest way to attract hummingbirds and other birds to your garden is to offer fresh water and blooming flowers. It is a beautiful way to attract hummingbirds for the season. Hummingbirds remember their reliable food and water sources and come back year after year. They follow the flower buffets, so gardening plans should include ongoing flowering or sequential flowering. A true copper penny (pre-1982) in the bird bath or waterer keeps out algae.

Perennials just need to get started, and then you’ll have blooms year after year and hummingbirds. To attract hummingbirds in Colorado, plant nectar-rich, tubular flowers like penstemon, Agastache (sunset hyssop), bee balm (Monarda), and cardinal flower. Key Colorado native plants include scarlet gilia, Rocky Mountain bee plant, and golden currant, which thrive in local conditions. For best results, choose plants that bloom at different times.

Pest-free and powerfully attractive

Flowers in hanging pots offer the birds—and us—a safe place to enjoy each other. Often, hummingbirds will nest in a hanging pot, too. Native plants that hummingbirds already love will attract them easily, as well as eliminating the problems with bears, squirrels, and wasps. No more trotting out at night to remove the feeders or the feeders going sour and endangering the birds.

Vertical gardens can hang anywhere, including fences, posts, and trees. They’re commercially available, but we can also make them with things around the house in a variety of ways. Filling garden soil into feed or seed bags and other strong food-grade bags can be upcycled as vertical planters. Turned inside out, the advertising doesn’t show while we wait for the plants to grow, and they can be painted for fun, too. Burlap is also a natural choice, but it dries out faster and may only be good for one season. Ensure the burlap and any materials used are clean and food-safe if you are growing edible plants or growing plants to be hummingbird-safe.

Gardeners fill the bags with the soil, make slits around the bag, add their plants or seeds, and hang the bags by the handles or tether them. It works like a strawberry pot, only bigger. For growing food, it is safest to rely on food-safe materials, proper soil, consistent watering, and safe amendments. Tomatoes and other climbing plants work well this way because they’ll just grow hanging downward instead of up a trellis. Some gardeners maintain that good quality soil, watering, and proper drainage are best, but some use hydrogels, and most add watering drain holes.

Absorbent material at the bottom (hydrogels or gel beads) can help avoid drying out. Quality potting mix is the ideal, though, so use a mix that includes vermiculite, peat moss, or coconut coir to hold moisture. A good mulch is a friend even with pots. Apply a layer of organic mulch (like straw or bark) on top of the soil to reduce evaporation.

Janet Sellers is an avid “lazy gardening” enthusiast, letting Mother Nature lead for gardening wisdom in our Tri-Lakes high desert ecosystem. Share your garden tips and stories: JanetSellers@ocn.me.

Other High Altitude Nature and Gardens articles

• Palmer Lake Historical Society, Feb. 19 – Ranch owners discovered Cherokee Trail artifacts (3/4/2026)
• High Altitude Nature and Gardens – A Colorado calendar, seed rolls, and Effective Microorganisms (EM) (3/4/2026)
• High Altitude Nature and Gardens – Rooting out crime: How our community’s flowers protect more than just plants (2/4/2026)
• High Altitude Nature and Gardens – Mini outdoor greenhouses, cinnamon to protect soil and seedlings (12/31/2025)
• High Altitude Nature and Gardens – Festive stuff: winter beauty outdoors, indoors, and holiday acorn bread (12/4/2025)
• High Altitude Nature and Gardens – November tips, paper-bagging geraniums, compost poles (10/30/2025)
• High Altitude Nature and Gardens – Cornmeal in the garden; sweet potato leaf greens (10/1/2025)
• High Altitude Nature and Gardens (HANG) – Fall and the forest: creating soil beds and a blue spruce kitchen treat (9/3/2025)
• High Altitude Nature and Gardens – Wild Horse Fire Brigade: successful fire mitigation since the beginning of…plants (7/31/2025)
• High Altitude Nature and Gardening (HANG) – Gardening with nature’s beautiful bouncers (7/3/2025)