In Search of Red

Because it's the holiday season, I planted a few containers with some red annuals for a bit of color in my hum-drum backyard. Lucky for me, hummers are attracted to red and it didn't take long for one to show up!   A week after seeing the Mockingbird in my fountain, I was standing at the back door looking out over the backyard, as I so often do, and thinking about which plants to plant where when unexpectedly, the hummer appeared just a few feet in front of me. I let out a gasp and watched as he darted from one red flower to another.

At first he visited this container of red million bells . . . 

before darting on to these red striped petunias. He then headed for a pot of red poinsettias before changing his mind, and ...

deciding to check out the spike of African blue basil flowers.

When he left the patio he darted all over the backyard in search of more red. Unfortunately, there wasn't anything else of interest, so he headed over to the neighbor's house for a visit. A few days later I moved the red pentas that were planted on the side of the house to the backyard in hopes of enticing this little fella to come more often. Now, I'm going to head to the nursery and pick up a firespike plant or two.

So happy to see the little critters showing up one by one!