creeper offers so much food, hungry
hummers can’t resist.
This sprawling vine, which can
grow 30 feet long, is not for small
spaces or shy gardeners. Eliminate
any shoots that pop up uninvited in
flowerbeds! Trained on a sturdy trellis or allowed to cling to the trunk
of a stout dead tree, the vine will
become established in three or four
years and then drip with orange-red flowers each summer. Hybrid
Campsis x tagliabuana ‘Madame
Galen’ has less exuberant growth
yet offers sweet rewards. Trumpet
creeper is native from Florida to
Pennsylvania, Iowa, and Texas. In
the West, it grows in Zones 5–9.
8. Coral honeysuckle
The difference between trumpet
creeper and coral (also called trum-
pet) honeysuckle (Lonicera semper-
virens) is like comparing a sprinter
with a marathon runner. The trumpet
creeper grows rapidly and pumps
out showy flowers during late sum-
mer. Coral honeysuckle grows more
slowly and produces long-lasting
clusters of red flowers that envelop
the vine from early May until frost. It
retains glossy leaves, and sometimes
a few blossoms, through southern
winters and behaves beautifully on
a trellis. If limited to only one plant
to attract hummingbirds, I would
choose coral honeysuckle. The vine
is native to the eastern and midwest-
ern United States and hardy north
into Zone 4. If nurseries near you
don’t stock the wild, red-blossomed
vine, cultivars Lonicera x Heckrottii
‘Goldflame’ or Lonicera x Brownii
‘Dropmore Scarlet’ will satisfy hum-
mers’ nectar cravings. Although
hummingbirds abandon feeders
during peak bloom of Japanese
honeysuckle (L. japonica), don’t be
tempted to plant this highly invasive
Asian species, which chokes fields
and woodlands in the eastern U.S.
9. Red-flowering currant
It is no accident that rufous
hummingbirds arrive in the Pacific
Northwest as red-flowering cur-
