Hummingbirds have a special ability that allows them to fly in all directions, making them fascinating, beautiful, and welcome visitors to watch in your yard. With their keen ability to remember where they fed a year prior, plants that attract them naturally can keep them returning to your home for years. If you’re searching for a solution to attract more hummingbirds to your yard, then look no further. You can easily make your garden gorgeous, guarantee low-maintenance, and create the ideal landscape to attract more hummingbirds by combining two plants:  catmint (Nepeta) and lamb’s ear (Stachys byzantina).

Perennial plants are ones that come back each year with care and can often stay year-round in warmer climates. Both lamb’s ear and catmint are perennial plants that hummingbirds love to visit, making them the perfect addition to your yard. Lamb’s ear can work as a great grass alternative for your lawn or groundcover in the garden. In addition to hummingbirds, catmint can attract other pollinators to your home, like bees and butterflies. The soft, fuzzy, muted silvery greens of the lamb’s ear next to the bluish purple, tube-shaped flowers of the catmint create a lovely contrast of colors for your garden.

Lamb’s ear is enjoyable to hummingbirds due to its spires of red, purple, or pinkish flowers that emerge in spring or summer and offer a source of nectar. Hummingbirds also like to use lamb’s ear’s soft leaves to make their nests. It’s an excellent plant for gardening because its fuzzy, greenish-gray leaves can act as a border and can be used to showcase your other taller plants. Growable in USDA Hardiness zones 4 through 9, you can plant lamb’s ear in sunny or partially shaded areas, and it’s easy to care for since it does not need much water to thrive.

Hummingbirds are drawn to catmint because of its tube-like flower shape and the lavender-blue blooms that encourages hummingbirds to visit. They are also attracted to the height of this plant, since it provides easy accessibility to nectar. There are a few varieties of catmint that you can plant to attract hummingbirds, such as Walker’s Low, Little Titch, and Purrsian Blue catmint. Appropriate for USDA Hardiness zones 4 through 8, caring for catmint plants is easy due to their versatility and ability to grow in most soil types. Like lamb’s ear, catmint grows well in the full sun and with little water, so the two work brilliantly as companion plants. They have a beautiful textural and colorful contrast when placed together, so you’ll enjoy admiring both the plants themselves and the hummingbirds they draw to your yard again and again.