If you’re anything like me, you’re always looking for new and innovative ways to attract hummingbirds. Even after having established multiple successful hummingbird feeding solutions in my garden, the next best thing around the corner never fails to attract my attention. Sometimes I’m actively hunting for novel hummingbird feeders, sometimes I stumble across them completely by accident.

Earlier this week I made a trip to my local Bed Bath and Beyond in search of an odor fighting spray I’d been reading about. You can read the resulting review on Zero Odor I put up on hubpages.com. It was while browsing through the store in search of Zero Odor that I happened to stumble across the TOPSY TURVY - HUMMINGBIRD HANGOUT PLANTER. My wife noticed it, actually, and she pointed out that it’s been a while since I updated this blog with any new content.

The $11.99 price tag seemed right so we went ahead and picked the product up intent on trying it out and writing some reviews as we get closer to hummingbird season in my neck of the woods. It’s a bit early, still, so take this preliminary review with a grain of salt and check back in a month or two for updates, but what follows will at least help manage your expectations a bit.

Early Impressions of the Topsy Turvy – Hummingbird Hangout Planter

Now I won’t lie – my first reaction was disappointment. You see this thing in the box in the store and just assume it contains everything you need (minus the soil) to get your planter started off right. Your assumption would be wrong. What you get is the Topsy Turvy planter and nothing more. There are no seeds, no miracle fertilizer or plant food, nada.

To be fair, the packaging doesn’t claim to include any of those things but neither does the picture of a planter in full bloom with hummingbird-friendly flowers imply otherwise. And, of course, the lack of any seeds or some kind of super-fantastic fertilizer begs the question – why buy this instead of just picking up an already potted, in-bloom, hummingbird-friendly plant in a planter from your local nursery for nearly the same price?

Well, folks, we’ll have to wait and see. The claim to fame the Topsy Turvy products market on is that the planters are uniquely friendly to growth. The quote from their advertising is as follows;

“Topsy Turvy® technology to make flowers grow like crazy! The Topsy Turvy® secret is in the vertical grow bag. As the sun heats the planter, water and nutrients constantly feed the roots, so they stay warm and moist on the inside, while the flowers grow healthier, fuller and faster on the outside. It’s like each plant has its own incubation eco-system!” 

Is it true? I’ll let you know soon. I’ll probably be planting and hanging my Topsy Turvy Hummingbird Hangout Planter next month and it will be living next to a regular ol’ pot containing the same types of flowers to see how it performs.

In the meantime, feel free to head over to hubpages to read my Zero Odor Spray review. That, at least, is one miraculous product that exceeded my expectations right away.

Hummingbirds feeding at a feeder are wonderful to watch. Assuming you managed to gain their trust and they are regular visitors, don’t break the bond by failing to maintain your feeder.In all likelihood, birds will simply stop visiting a dirty hummingbird feeder. The risk, if they don’t, is that contamination could well lead to sickness. Please be sure to follow the advice below and keep your (their) feeder as clean as possible.

You should clean your hummingbird feeders between every filling by flushing it with hot tap water. Doing so regularly will help you avoid using soap (hummingbirds hate the residual taste). If you neglected to clean your feeder well before putting it away for the winter, be sure to give it a thorough cleaning and scrubbing (using a pipe cleaner or bottle brush) and also follow the monthly maintenance steps that come next.

With every filling you should visually inspect your feeder for signs of mold. You are looking for black patches or spots. Once every month (or more frequently if you see mold) soak your feeder and all its parts in a solution of bleach and water. A quarter cup of bleach to a gallon of water is the recommended mixture. Let your feeder stew in the solution for no less than an hour and then give it a complete scrubbing with a brush and pipe cleaner. Rinse, rinse and rinse again. But even if you can’t completely eliminate the smell of bleach from the cleaner, any residual bleach will be neutralized by the sugar water you’ll add when you place it back outside and it naturally dissipates just like chlorine will in water over time.

Remember that warmer weather speeds both the spoiling of the nectar in your feeder and promotes faster growth of mold. Average temperatures above 90 degrees Fahrenheit should prompt you to empty, rinse and inspect your feeder twice as often as you would in cooler conditions.

Hummingbird feeding is as much about responsible care of your little charges as it is about enjoying their company. Be a good host and maintain a regular schedule of hummingbird feeder cleaning. If you don’t feel you can commit to such a schedule, do yourself and the birds a favor and plant hummingbird attracting plants instead.

I suspect I’m not the only one to have heard a thud outside my window and, on inspection, discovered the heartbreaking sight of an injured or dying bird on the ground. Birds of all kinds can and do fly into windows from time to time. Hummingbirds are no different but the concern here is generally inflated. Decorative features, the way light plays on glass, curtains and blinds all serve to, more often than not, make windows stand out as an impenetrable feature. It also helps that your visiting hummingbirds are going to be more interested in flying TO your hummingbird feeder rather than PAST it at breakneck speeds.

The greater risk is not the lone hummingbird approaching a hummingbird feeder placed by a window. Rather, it is the territorial and dominant nature of these little devils that tends to get them in trouble. A single hummingbird can become very possessive of your feeder. Multiple hummingbirds feeding from the same feeder may dispute ownership. In its frenetic efforts to drive off competition, it might well drive its opposition or itself into your window. But there are a few simple things you can do to help minimize the odds of that happening.

Consider placing multiple feeders throughout your property. Ensure they are out of sight of each other so that one selfish bird doesn’t assume he can dominate them all. The four sides of your home may work well with ample coverage provided by the structure itself.

If you want a prime viewing spot with a feeder right outside your window, consider adding blinds to the window. Venetian style blinds can be tilted open to allow you a view of the feeding animals but provide enough of a visual barrier to deter birds from intentionally or unintentionally trying to enter your house at warp speed.

Decorative features such as glass decorations will add a touch of flair to your window but also serve as a visual queue to your birds. You could also consider subtle adhesive tinting. Sold in rolls like plastic food wrap, these can make your windows stand out as an obstacle. Speaking of plastic food wrap, colored versions of this material can also serve to help your window stand out while still providing you an unobstructed view of your hummingbird feeding station. Finally, a screen outside your window is generally visible enough to prevent birds from flying into your window. Even if they overlook it, it’s a comparatively soft impact.

Given that there are some practical solutions at hand to reduce the risk of injuring your visiting hummingbirds, I don’t see any real reason to avoid placing your feeder at or near your windows. Just apply a bit of common sense or some creative defensive measures and your hummingbird feeding efforts should be devoid of any windows related tragedies.

 But speaking of window mounted hummingbird feeders, if you’re looking for one, take a peek at the Droll Yankees Window Mounted Hummingbird Feeder with Nectar Guard.

I elected to write a post rather than answer Monte’s question in the comments because there’s are some questions when it comes to your personal preferences for protecting your hummingbird garden. Do you enjoy having the deer around but want to protect your hummingbird attracting flowers? Would you be content to never see a deer in your garden again (the sound of gardeners applauding this one is almost deafening)? Would you still like them to show up but just graze on the periphery of your garden?

If you would be content to keep deer away entirely, a high fence is your best bet. If you want to maintain an open garden, there are several commercially available deer repellents as well as some sworn-by home solutions. Many gardeners swear by soap (Dial and Zest get good reviews). Deer apparently don’t like the smell. Plant these around the perimeter of your garden. Heavily scented fabric softeners or nylon stocking stuffed with human hair clippings are also reported to keep deer at bay.

If you are content to have deer at the periphery of your garden but not feeding in your garden, consider giving them what they want. Clover and alfalfa at the edges of your yard (peferably near cover so the deer feel safe) will give deer a tempting meal to nibble on which will hopefully deter them from feeling the need to venture further in. Additionally, you can use the soap idea from above but place the bars near your hummingbird flowers but away from other plants you don’t mind the deer grazing on.

To answer your question specifically, though, there are flowers ideal for hummingbird feeding that are considered deer tolerant (more on that term in a minute). You could consider using any of these in combination with the strategy of planting deer-prefered plants closer to the edge of your garden in an effort to keep hummingbirds, deer and nature loving home owner happy.

Perenials

• Bee Balm
• Cardinal Flower
• Dahlia

Annuals

• Flowering Tobacco

Vines 

• Cardinal Climber

Now to address the term “deer tolerant.” Regardless what you plant or don’t plant, deer stressed by over population, habitat loss or hunger will bypass just about anything and eat just about anything. Ultimately, a fence is the only assured solution for keeping deer at bay. Please let me know if you try any of these suggestions and how they work out.

My early experiments with hummingbird feeding involved using a commercial nectar. The product did the job of bringing in the birds but I worry to this day that the red coloring may have been harmful. Though I haven’t found any literature proving conclussively that artificial coloring presents a risk to fragile hummingbirds, it is perhaps best to er on the side of caution and avoid such solutions entirely.

If you choose to use a commercial product for your hummingbird feeding needs, consider avoiding products containing artificial coloring, additives and nutrients. Remember that a hummingbird consumes nectar to fuel its engine for hunting real food. Nectar produced with nutrition in mind might be more harmful than useful (though there’s no proof to back that up, just the perhaps overly-cautious concern of a bird lover).

Any powder nectar mix you might buy is going to require preparation including mixing (and probably boiling) in water. As hummingbird feeding with homemade nectar requires the same steps, you could consider the diy approach as a more economic and more involved way of meeting your hummingbird feeding needs.

To produce a homemade nectar, use only cane table sugar. As noted in Special Hummingbird Feeding Needs you want to use a mixture of about 1 part cane sugar for every 4 parts water but can intensify the mix to 1 part cane sugar for every 3 parts water during migration periods. Those who wish to use other sweetner options should be warned that you might risk driving off your hummingbirds or harming them.

Feeding hummingbirds should never include the use of powdered sugar. Also avoid raw sugar as it contains iron which can, over time, prove harmful or fatal to hummingbirds. As mentioned in Basics of Attracting and Feeding Hummingbirds, never use honey as a sweetner. Honey can lead to fungal an microbeal infestations that are fatal to hummingbirds.

Finally, don’t put your hummingbirds on a diet. A hummingbird is always hours away from starvation. They feed on copious amounts of nectar, far in excess of their own body mass, during the day just to provide the energy they need to hunt for the food that keeps them alive. Artificial sweetners such as sacarine may fool the birds into visiting your hummingbird feeding station but will provide absolutely zero calories of burnable energy. A bird fooled into consuming nectar made from an artificial sweetner will likely burn energy it doesn’t have and be unable to hunt for the sustenance it desperately needs to stay alive. So I’ll say it again - NO ARTIFICIAL SWEETNERS!

In our section on the Basics of Attracting and Feeding Hummingbirds we mentioned the color red. Hummingbirds are readily attracted to the color red as an initial incentive but when it comes to hummingbird feeding, the contents of the feeder are more important than the color. While many commercial feeders contain red in their color schemes, it isn’t absolutely essential. An assortment of feeders, some containing red, would be sufficient to entice the birds to your garden. They’ll make ample use of other colored feeders once they’ve been lured in. Also make note of the color yellow. Bees and wasps are attracted to the color yellow and your objective is to do what you can to keep them away (for reasons explained shortly).

Another consideration is glass over plastic. Glass feeders, while more fragile, offer greater longevity. Remember that an important element of hummingbird feeding is maintaining a clean feeder and that requires regular cleaning. Plastic feeders will more easily accept scratches from cleaning brushes which will accumulate over time. These imperfections in the surface may lead to easier mold growth and result in more frequent cleaning requirements but given the frequent cleanings your feeder will require anyway, it’s probably not a real concern.

Additional thoughts in selecting the right hummingbird feeding station are how accomodating they are to other critters. Ants, wasps and bees are your main concern as these creatures can both foul the sugar water or simply be such a nuisance as to cause your hummingbirds to abandon your offering entirely. While there are ant moat options to deal with the ants, feeders should restrict access to the water sufficiently that a hummingbird’s long beak and tongue can reach but a bee or wasp can’t.

Finally, your own aesthetic tastes come into play. As functional as some low-end feeders may be, they’re hardly pretty. Whether displayed in a beautiful hummingbird garden or hanging promenantly near a window, some folks want the best of both worlds and aspire to both beauty and functionality. Hummingbird feeding is only part of the objective. Another beautiful element to showcase their home or garden is often another. And, trust me on this, some of the handblown glass humingbird feeding stations out there are simply astounding. Just remember, you’ll pay considerably more for a handmade feeder but the look is often worth the price.

To optimize your chances of attracting and spotting a hummingbird, you’ll need to do a bit of planning. You want to meet as many of the bird’s needs as you can. First there’s the nectar. As explained in Basics of Attracting and Feeding Hummingbirds, you’ll want to ensure you offer flowers that meet the bird’s 25% sugar content preference. In addition, you’ll want a mixture of perenials, annuals, bulbs, shrubs and vines which provide flowering sources of nectar throughout the season. We’ll provide a comprehensive list of hummingbird friendly flowers and plants in a future post.

In addition to nectar, a hummingbird will want a clean source of unsweetened water both for consumption and bathing. My own yard has a small pond and waterfall. I’ve included shallow still(ish)water areas that move just enough water to prevent stagnation but are calm enough to entice bathing birds without risking them being washed away. My small yard is a year-around bird bath and drinking station.

While you’ll need plenty sun to grow the various flowers on which your hummingbirds will feed, you’ll also want shady locations where they can perch and rest. Hummingbirds spend far less time flying around and feeding than they do perched and conserving energy. Be sure to provide opportunities for both.

Remember that hummingbirds consume nectar for energy. Their real source of food comes from insects and spiders. If you can find a way to attract flies or other bugs to a corner of your yard, you’ll meet your hummingbird’s real feeding needs. Sweet fruit such as bannanas will often serve the purpose well.

Finally, don’t discount a few well-placed artificial hummingbird feeders scattered around your garden. These will serve as convenient stand-ins when flowering plants are scarce at the end of the season. They will also provide alternative locations should hummingbirds become competitive. Larger species will bully smaller birds for the best sources of nectar. Having several hummingbird feeding stations in your garden ensures ample supplies for all comers.

When it comes to hummingbird feeding, Spring and Fall are important calendar periods of which you should be particularly conscious. A hummingbird expends significant calories during migration periods and sources of nectar become harder to find in the Fall. If you are following the 1 to 4 sugar/water feeding recommendation, consider increasing the sugar to water ratio a bit in the fall to 1 part sugar to 3 parts water. This will provide the additional energy a hummingbird needs to make the long trip ahead.

Your consideration in the Spring is initially attracting hummingbirds to your garden or artificial hummingbird feeding station. As a hummingbird migrates North, it is expending as much energy as it did during its Fall migration. While there are likely more natural food sources available during its Spring migration, your objective is to provide an inviting home and hopefully entice a bird or two to hang around.

Though the migration schedules for hummingbirds varies by species, a good rule of thumb is to get your feeder out early. Mid March is a good, early start time. Delay by a week or two if you live in a more northern climate.

Residents of Southern California could leave their feeders out all year and still attract visitors as the gentler climate caters to year-around hummers. Remember to keep the feeder cleaning schedule up. Also consider cutting back on how much you are feeding visiting hummingbirds as other species will have migrated south and you may be hosting less visitors. The birds will let you know their needs. If you come home to an empty feeder every day, up the amount of sugar water to compensate.

Finally, remember that the sugar water you are feeding hummingbirds is a supplemental food source for energy and not for nutrition. Hummingbirds will also feed on insects and drink unsweetened water so a garden that supplies both will further increase your odds of hosting a hummingbird during the hummingbird busy season!

Attracting hummingbirds to your backyard is all about providing them desirable alternatives to what nature readily serves up. These high-metabolism animals rely largely on the nectar of plants but don’t limit their feeding habits exclussively to flowers.

Though nectar is a fabulous source of sweet, sugary energy, it fails miserably at providing other key nutrients critical to the bird’s survival. In addition, as nectar isn’t something a hummingbird can readily pass on to their young, hummingbirds also rely on insects as a source of protein, vitamins and minerals.

Of course, when we think about hummingbird feeding, offering a selection of bugs isn’t all that appealing. The objective is to catch glimpses of these beautiful animals hovering effortlessly at a hummingbird feeding station or flower and, if we’re lucky, snap a picture or two to show to our friends. With that in mind, let’s talk a bit about the hummingbird’s finicky tastes.

Hummingbirds feed on very sweet nectar and will reject flowers that don’t offer up at least 12% sugar content. That said, their preference leans to about 25% sugar content. If you would like to attract hummingbirds to a natural garden setting, consider planting Fuchsia, Foxglove, Geraniums, Petunias and Iris.

In addition to feeding hummingbirds a natural selection of nectar, man-made solutions are also available. Hummingbird feeders come in a great variety of designs and colors. A good guide to selecting a feeding station for a hummingbird is to remember that you’re only marginally trying to appeal to the bird’s aesthetic tastes and are more focused on serving up a yummy meal.

Hummingbirds are most readily attracted to the color red so you’ll up your odds of attracting a hummingbird if your feeding station includes the color red. Glass and plastic models available at garden supply centers are equally acceptable. It is very important, though, to keep the feeders clean and well stocked. A dirty hummingbird feeder will be quickly rejected by a fickle hummingbird. If you want to attract and keep attracting hummers, make sure their feeders are kept clean.

While there are commercially available “nectars” on the market, a hummingbird will be just as happy with a nice mix of one part sugar to four parts water. Do not use food coloring and NEVER use honey as a sweetner (more on this later). Also, don’t substitute real sugar for artificial sweetner. Artificial sweetners have absolutely zero nutritional value!

Finally, give the hummingbird its space. While they are bold and can and will become accustomed to your presence (I’ve had them feed 3 feet from me) you should give them the opportunity to grow comfortable with their new food supply before you try making friends. While that covers the basics of hummingbird feeding, there are many considerations not yet discussed which you shouldn’t overlook. Please check back soon for additional information to guide you!