Bird/Butterfly Gardening

I'm in Maine, zone 4, so we got the same basic weather.

In my own garden, the best flowers for attracting hummingbirds and butterflies are the Red Bee Balm which will grow in small places and grows in both sun and shade; and dark pink Tall Garden Phlox, which prefers full sun and attracts butterflies and hummingbirds in droves. Basicly if you have these two flowers, you'll have both hummingbirds and butterflies.


For attracting Cardinels and most small songbirds try grape vines (look great on a garden arbor or front porch) and wild white rose bushes. Small song birds prefer to use the bark off the grape vines to build their nests, and many types of songbirds prefer wild rose bushes to build their nests in (the very thorny branches keeps out predators).

Sunflowers will attract Goldfinches, Chickadees, Titmouse, and Nuthatch.

Most song birds well nest in Lilac bushes as well.

Pretty much any red or dark pink flower will attract butterflies.

Good luck! I'm no help at all since I live right on the border of zone 7/8. But I have a garden full of salvias and butterflybush and lantana (which hates the cold). My butterfly bush is smothered in butterflies each spring.

Scarlet Tangers are so beautiful! I love them, but I rarly ever see them. We've got one that comes around once every few months, I think he's there more often, but I just never see him, cause they're a really nervouse breed.


Here's a picture of a red bee balm: http://www.ct-botanical-society.org/galleries/monardadidy.html , they call it: Scarlet Bee-balm (Oswego-tea)Monarda didyma

I started out with 3 plants that I got mail-order, and now about 15 years later I've got maybe 50 or 60 plants. They spread like strawberries by sending out runners. They have a really nice, strong lemony mint scent to them and they attract butterflies and humming birds all summer.

Last year, I had a humming bird that loved them so much, she built a nest in the bushes next to them, and than "guarded" that clump of flowers caseing away the other hummingbirds.


I love tea roses, but I've never gotten one to last longer than 3 years. If we have a mild winter they can cover over with a hay bed, but a cold winter like this year's they can't take. My fave is the Blue Girl Rose, the Purple Tiger, and Tropicana, but none of them last hard winters, but I keep trying, getting new ones and hoping to find a way to keep they going through winter.

We got lots of wild roses around here, cause we are right on the beach and they grow wild all up and down the coast line of Maine. The one in my garden is over 200 years old, it belonged to my grandmother's grandmother. It's a climber, right now 13' tall. It's the one plant that gets the most attention and constant care, mostly because it's been growing in our yard for so many years now, but also because I just plain love roses. My dad was going to cut it down about 20 years ago, but I dug it up and moved it into my garden instead. It was about 8' tall at the time I moved it, and that was the worst plant I've ever tried to move... all the long spindly branches and covered in horrid thorns. I am glad I moved it though, cause it's my fave plant.

Last year a big pine tree fell over on it and smashed it all to peices. It used to have these long graceful arching branches that I had trained to go across the path, making a natural canopy. It took me years to get it to grow like that, but that's gone now cause of the tree that fell on it. Luckily the main trunk of the bush didn't break, it just bent, so I braced it up and it's regrowing out it's long branches all over again.