Plant collection

Flowers That Attract Birds

The flowers that attract birds do it two ways: tubular red or lavender blooms feed hummingbirds on nectar, and composite daisies feed goldfinches and other finches on seed once the petals drop.

Every plant here is native to North America; the growing facts are from the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center's Native Plant Database and the reason to choose natives is Audubon's ¹.

Goldfinch on a purple coneflower seed head — flowers that attract birds feed them twice, nectar then seed — Photo: Cephas, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Flowers that attract birds with nectar: hummingbird plants

Cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis) is the purest hummingbird plant: most insects find its long tubular red flowers difficult to navigate, so it depends on hummingbirds for pollination; it blooms May–October in moist to wet soil ². Wild bergamot (Monarda fistulosa) is listed as attracting birds, hummingbirds and butterflies, blooms May–September, and thrives in almost any soil in sun or part shade ³.

Seed flowers that attract finches

Common sunflower (Helianthus annuus) seeds are sought by many species of wild birds, and the plants give cover when mixed with other annuals ⁴. Purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) draws butterflies and hummingbirds to its flowers and leaves spiny seed heads for finches; it is a prairie plant for sun and well-drained soil ⁵. Black-eyed susan (Rudbeckia hirta) is listed for seeds for granivorous birds — birds enjoy the ripe seeds — and is highly deer and drought resistant ⁶.

The management rule for all three is the same: do not deadhead. Leave seed heads standing through fall and winter.

Why native plants first

Native plants are those that occur naturally in the region where they evolved, and Audubon calls them the ecological basis on which birds depend: without them and the insects that co-evolved with them, local birds cannot survive ¹. The scale matters — a native oak supports over 500 species of caterpillars where a ginkgo hosts five, and it takes more than 6,000 caterpillars to raise one brood of chickadees ¹. Most nursery landscaping plants are alien species, so choosing natives is the single landscaping decision with the clearest effect on bird populations ¹.

The alternative is what most yards already have. Audubon notes that manicured lawn now covers over 40 million acres of the United States as a green monoculture, that the traditional suburban lawn carries on average ten times more chemical pesticide per acre than farmland, and that the continental U.S. has lost 150 million acres of habitat and farmland to sprawl ¹. Every bed of natives that replaces turf is habitat that lawn cannot be, and long-lived native trees such as oaks and maples also store carbon ¹.

Check the native range before buying: the Wildflower Center record for this species lists the states and provinces where it occurs naturally ², and Audubon's zip-code native plant database narrows that to your area and the bird groups each plant attracts ¹. Once established, native plants generally need little maintenance and far less water than lawn, and they do not need the pesticides that make a yard poor bird habitat ¹.

Each plant above links to its own profile with the Wildflower Center's native range, so you can confirm it occurs naturally where you live before buying ¹.

More plant guides

Cardinal Flower →Common Sunflower →Purple Coneflower →Black-eyed Susan →Wild Bergamot →Trumpet Honeysuckle →American Elderberry →Canadian Serviceberry →Native plants for birds →Berry plants for birds →Seed plants for birds →Nectar plants for birds →Shelter plants for birds →

Frequently asked questions

What flowers attract hummingbirds?

Tubular natives such as cardinal flower and wild bergamot; cardinal flower depends on hummingbirds for pollination ²³.

What flowers attract goldfinches?

Composites with seed heads — sunflower, coneflower and black-eyed susan — left standing after bloom ⁴⁵⁶.