Good morning from the garden!

Lately I’ve been enjoying watching the hummingbirds in my garden.  It seemed like I had a sweet little pair of them flitting about, chasing each other playfully.  So I thought “gee, I wonder if they mate for life” and decided to do a little research.

Yeah, they don’t.

In fact, the male hummingbird is a bit of a player.  He mates with multiple females, and after mating he flees immediately.  The males don’t help build the nest, and they don’t help take care of the young.  They aren’t chasing each other playfully, they are chasing each other out of their territory.

Wow, I’m not sure I like these hummingbirds anymore!

But they are fun to watch.

I’ve always tried to plant a few things that I know attract hummingbirds.  One of my favorite is the Black & Blue Salvia.

I find that they also love my Roguchi clematis.

I know that hummingbirds like brightly colored tubular shaped flowers, so both of those are obvious candidates.  But recently I was surprised to learn that they really like the flowers on heuchera, or coral bells.

This year I planted some Northern Exposure Black heuchera in the front window box.

When Mr. Q and I are having our morning coffee on the front porch, this planter is right outside the window at eye level.  I’ve been surprised to see the hummingbirds enjoying the flowers on a regular basis.

The Northern Exposure series of heuchera were bred for cold hardiness and are rated down to zone 3.  I will pull these out of the window box in the fall and put them in the ground somewhere to overwinter.  I’ve always struggled to get other heuchera to overwinter, but these Northern Exposure varieties seem to do well in my Minnesota garden.

I also have a Dark Eyes fuchsia in the front window box.

Hummingbirds are a big fan of this one as well, unfortunately so are the Japanese beetles.  Yesterday I had to give it a bit of a cut back to remove all of the beetle damaged foliage.

If you’re wondering what else I have in my front window box, I decided to do a dark purple/silvery sort of color scheme this year.

For the silvery foliage I have Sea Salt artemisia, Angel Wings senecio and Silver Threads helichrysum.  For the deep purples I have that Northern Exposure Black heuchera, some Blackie sweet potato vine and a couple of Midnight Majesty coleus.

The contrast between the dark purples and the silvery foliage is quite striking.

I also have some Rex begonias in there that combine both colors.

When choosing plants for my front window box I have to also think about the perennials that are planted in the bed below it.

I have a large patch of astilbe with purple-ish blooms.

And I also have a Chocoholic Snakeroot.

So whatever I choose has to work well with those purples.

By the way, I highly recommend the Chocoholic.  I did not treat this plant very well initially because I couldn’t decide where to put it.  As a result, I moved it at least five times over its first couple of years.  Ironically, the internet says they are notoriously difficult to transplant due to a deep taproot, but I certainly didn’t find that to be the case.  Aside from making sure that it doesn’t dry out, this plant has been almost maintenance free for me.

As I was taking these photos I realized that I have a couple of plants in the window box that have been completely overtaken, so I’m headed out there to see if I can find new, roomier homes for them.  Wish me luck!