Are you looking for some color to liven up the gray winter landscape? By choosing winter-blooming plants, you will get the satisfaction of a few flowers when much of the country is under ice and snow.
Some of your choices are available in specialty nurseries now and other choices, like the winter-blooming snow drops, are available as bulbs in the fall and need to be planted then. They all produce subtle flowers but if you have them, our resident Anna’s hummingbirds will find them.
Mahonia, an evergreen shrub, is the best hummingbird magnet, which is surprising given the yellow flower. Due to its spiky leaves, it is a deer-resistant plant that grows well in woodland areas, part-sun areas of the garden or in a large container.
Which hazel, another winter bloomer, also sports a yellow flower but occasionally you will see a plant that is orange r-ed and blooms in late winter. As a deciduous shrub, the plant loses all its leaves before blooming.
Camelias also bloom and attract hummers, but I am not convinced they are a large producer of nectar. This Yuletide variety begins its color show in mid-December and continues through January when given some fertilizer in late summer as the buds are forming.
Similar to camelias, anemones produce generously sized flowers in many colors and the cultivars available seem to increase as more winter gardeners become aware of their value during the rainy season.
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