Hummingbirds Love These Purple Fall Flowers – Plant Them Now for More Backyard Visitors

With the hummingbird migration now in full swing, it's more important than ever to make your backyard resource-rich to support these charming feathered visitors as they stop by.

While there are a wide range of plants to attract hummingbirds in spring and summer, fall is a trickier time where many perennials have faded. It makes those nectar-rich fall flowers even more valuable, as they fill a 'nectar gap' for these birds. When selecting which to grow, you may automatically think of red flowers for hummingbirds, but there's another color that attracts them: purple. In fact, this is a common fall flower color, with the likes of hummingbird mint, Mexican bush sage, and more attracting and supporting hummingbirds this season.

Whether you grow just one or all of the below purple fall flowers for hummingbirds, it's sure to help keep them fuelled and energized for the rest of their journey south.

Why Do Hummingbirds Like Purple?

Hummingbirds are naturally attracted to the color purple because they have tetrachromatic vision. This allows them to see the ultraviolet light spectrum, which ultimately means bold purple and electric-blue blooms stand out sharply against green foliage and vegetation.

It's the same reason why they're attracted to the color red, and therefore why many hummingbird feeders and smart bird feeder cameras for hummingbirds tend to be red (like this red glass hummingbird feeder from Walmart).

Mexican Bush Sage

• USDA: 8-10

Mexican bush sage is one of the best purple fall flowers to grow for migrating hummingbirds because it blooms from late summer through fall.

It's a shrubby perennial belonging to the mint family. With long, arching, velvety flower spikes and tubular flowers, it's suited to the long bills of hummingbirds.

While it does dieback in the first hard frost of fall, it's one of the first purple blooms to fill the nectar gap after summer.

Provide it in a full-sun position in rich, well-draining soil. If you're planting multiple, space them 3-5ft apart.

Find a Mexican bush sage plant on Amazon.

Catmint

• USDA: 3-9

Catmint, or Nepeta, is one of the most-loved purple plants because it's hardy, reliable, fills gaps in beds, and it smells delicious.

While it isn't strictly a fall flower, it often continues its summer display into fall – you can encourage a second flush of flowers by removing spent flowers and leggy growth after its first flush earlier in summer. You should use sharp pruning tools for this, like these Fiskars bypass pruners from Amazon.

Much like Mexican bush sage, catmint has tall flower spikes with small tubular flowers hummingbirds can feed from. It's also a hugely successful bee and butterfly magnet, making it an invaluable plant for fall pollinators.

Catmint can bloom into October, though it will depend on the exact variety. 'Walker's Low' catmint from Trees.com is a reliable choice, as is 'Six Hills Giant' catmint from Plant Addicts.

When growing catmint, choose a full sun position and well-draining soil, but don't worry about adding fertilizers as too much can make its spikes flop over and cause unsightly gaps.

Great Blue Lobelia

• USDA: 4-9

While much more of a blue-purple flower, great blue lobelia (Lobelia siphilitica) is another great choice of fall flower to support hummingbirds when other summer blooms are scarce.

You may be more familiar with red cardinal flower for hummingbirds (Lobelia cardinalis), but this blue-purple variety is also valuable to them.

It has tubular blooms which typically flower from July through October. As a native plant, you'll also spot lots of bees and butterflies being supported by these bright flowers.

Great blue lobelia (which is available on Amazon) should be planted in moisture-retentive soil, as it thrives in wetter environments. It's great for a rain garden for this reason.

Agastache

• USDA: 5-10

Agastache, also known as hyssop or hummingbird mint, is one of the best flowers to attract hummingbirds. When it comes to purple varieties, Agastache 'Black Adder' and Agastache 'Blue Fortune' (from Plant Addicts) are beautiful options.

Its tubular flowers are packed with nectar, which hummingbirds can easily feed from. It typically blooms from early summer to the first frost, so it provides months of nectar for these little birds.

Agastache grows best in full sun, and too little light can actually cause leggy, weak growth, resulting in poor blooms.

As your agastache matures, you should divide hummingbird mint every 3-5 years.

Obedient Plant

• USDA: 3-9

Obedient plant (Physostegia virginiana) produces spikes of pink and lavender blooms with tubular flowers which hummingbirds love, especially as the hummingbird migration begins.

It tends to keep blooming until the first frost, once again helping to fill the nectar gap for hummingbirds towards the end of the growing season.

The best part is it adapts to a wide range of growing conditions. This includes full sun to partial shade, and clay, sand, or chalky soil – though it prefers a rich, evenly watered soil. As it becomes established, it does become more drought tolerant.

Find a purple obedient plant on Amazon, or explore other obedient plant colors at Plant Addicts.

Shop Our Hummingbird Edit

It's not too early to be thinking about how to care for hummingbirds in winter, too. This includes stocking up on nectar for feeders, looking out for hummingbird nests, and planting winter flowering shrubs. Our guide to where hummingbirds overwinter has more advice on how to offer them support in your yard.

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