Our friend gave us some unidentified seeds about three years ago. They came from a “dark green plant with blue blossoms that resembled crepe paper. They were positioned by our garage in a garden nook. We quickly developed a dark green shrub with serrated leaves that eventually produced beautiful blue tubular blooms. It refroze during the winter and then reemerged in the spring. AND it spread, but we discovered that the tiny self-seeded plants were simple to remove.
Without success, I tried to identify this plant. I thoroughly read the Sunset Western Garden Book, consulted other gardeners who visited our garden, and, in the end, gave up the search. Then, last week, when on a trip with the Vaca Valley Garden Club at High Hand Nursery in Loomis, I came across our plant. It is a Mexican petunia, or Ruellia brittoncana. The mysterious plant was finally identified and given a name.
Research revealed that this plant is native to Mexico and is simple to grow in either dry or moist soil. They are evergreen shrubs that reach heights of 3 feet and a width of 4 feet. There are a few dwarf kinds available, like “Katie,” which reaches a height of 10 inches. These plants produce flowers in a variety of blue, purple, or white hues with little care. The two plants are not related, despite the fact that they resemble the petunia bloom we are all familiar with. Because the plants’ vibrant blossoms draw butterflies and hummingbirds, many home gardeners grow them.
Due to its invasiveness, Ruellia is either adored or despised by gardeners. There is a sterile variety with deep purple flowers named “Purple Showers” that will not self-seed. Even though it won’t reseed, if cultivated in wet soil, it can spread by its roots. They are also known as desert petunias and grow more flowers the more sun they get. Mexican petunias can be propagated through division, seeds, or cuttings.
Once established, plants planted in the early spring will bloom all through the summer and into the fall. Although young plants require routine watering, the plant is sturdy enough to endure prolonged periods of dryness. They adapt quickly and thrive in containers as long as they get sunlight. The best news is that Ruellia brittoncana is very resilient to the majority of illnesses and pests.
What petunia varieties draw hummingbirds?
Hummingbirds are drawn to petunias because they offer them an excellent source of nectar, which gives them energy throughout the day.
Petunias can be grown in hanging baskets or even in your yard. You can watch the hummingbirds enjoy the petunias as they migrate north for breeding season if you plant them in the spring.
Although red petunias work best to draw hummingbirds, you’ll succeed with the brightest colors.
Do you plant flowers in your yard to entice hummingbirds? Which flower brings you the most success? Please share in the comments section.
thoughts on “Do Hummingbirds Like Petunias?
“Petunias are a native flower,” you write. I’m not sure where you are, but southern South American native plants gave rise to the petunia cultivars that we today find in garden centers in North America and Europe. Petunias are not indigenous to any other country.
Does nectar grow on Mexican petunias?
Brush-footed butterflies, which belong to the Nymphalidae family, can be recognized by their distinctive forelegs, which resemble fine brush hairs rather than two separate legs. The brush feet are seen on a variety of butterflies, including mourning cloaks and anglewings, and they range in size from 1.5 to 3.5 inches across. These big butterflies may feed on a steady supply of nectar from the Mexican petunia’s beautiful blooms throughout the summer months.
What attracts Mexican petunia?
Yes, butterflies are attracted to Ruellia, the Mexican petunia. A variety of butterflies love to visit its blossoms for nectar, and some may use it as a host plant when they are in their caterpillar stage.
What flower does the hummingbird like best?
Let the hummingbirds fly! The elegance and aerobatics of these flying jewels have captivated gardeners for generations. Planting nectar-rich blooms and offering a welcoming environment are the keys to luring hummingbirds to your yard. Check out our plant list and advice!
Flowers that Attract Hummingbirds
The greatest nectar is typically produced by tubular, brightly colored flowers because they are particularly alluring to hummingbirds. These include several annuals, such as cleomes, impatiens, and petunias, as well as perennials like bee balms, columbines, daylilies, and lupines as well as biennials like foxgloves and hollyhocks.
Here is a list of hummingbird-friendly floral plants. Select cultivars with red and orange undertones.
Hummingbirds are able to sip from petunias.
Given their ease of cultivation and low cost, petunias are among the most widely used annual flowers. They are favorites for containers, borders, and baskets in tiny spaces and work well in almost any sunny garden location.
The flower grows best in full sun and will regularly bloom, giving hummingbirds who are in need of nectar a plentiful supply.
- USDA Plant Hardiness Zones 10 to 11; typically grown as an annual
- Pink, white, red, purple, blue, and a variety of other hues are available.
- Sunlight: full sun
- A medium-moisture, well-drained soil is required.
Hummingbirds Like Spider Webs
Keep any spider webs that appear amid the plants if you want to entice hummingbirds to your garden. These webs’ fragile strands are used by hummingbirds as nesting material. Insects caught in spider webs are another thing that hummingbirds frequently steal.
Which hanging plant is most effective in luring hummingbirds?
These vibrant and reasonably priced annuals thrive in containers and are simple to grow in a sunny environment. They produce an abundance of flowers that are beautiful when they spill out of pots and containers.
You can cultivate them from seed, but they are frequently offered as young plants in flats at nurseries. If starting from seed, start them ten weeks prior to the last date of your last frost, then put them outside once the risk has gone.
Petunias can withstand quite a bit of heat, but they need have a nice soak once a week.
To keep them from becoming lanky and lean, prune them to a height of around half.
- Zones for Growing: 9 to 11
- Daytime Sun
- Soil: Moist, well-drained soil
- Red, pink, white, blue, and purple are the colors.
- 618 inches tall
- 18 inches to 4 feet of spread
Do Mexican petunias appeal to butterflies?
We at the Bay Haven Inn of Cape Charles enjoy helping the hummingbirds, butterflies, and bees!
We have enjoyed planting flowers to draw in and observe these beautiful and helpful creatures, especially since the population of monarch butterflies has decreased by 90% since the 1990s.
Our monarch butterflies (shown above) typically come to visit in late July and stay until late September. They can be seen migrating in the video up top.
It’s a perfect time to go to Cape Charles because the birds are busy planning their migration.
Anybody can feel pleased when they are around lovely flowers, buzzing bees, stunning butterflies, and fluttering hummingbirds.
However, how do you get more of these pollinators to visit your own flower garden? It’s actually quite simple. Bees, butterflies, and hummers all have special meals that they like to eat, just like everyone else in the world.
However, a cozy setting is necessary before they can enjoy their meal. To do so, strong pesticides like malathion, Sevin, and diazinon must be abandoned. These exterminate bees and butterflies.
Surprising Ways to Create an Abundance of Butterflies and Hummingbirds
Fred, the hummingbird in residence. He comes back every year. Thanks to Robert Suppa for the photo
Grow regionally appropriate plants in your yard. Additionally, pick hues that draw attractive and fruitful insects.
Bees prefer the hues purple, blue, and yellow the most. They also favor Queen Anne’s lace, zinnias, and asters as well as flowers with shallow or flat petals.
Red is attractive to hummers, who may notice it as they pass you by. Additionally, they consider the lovely crimson hues to be the official Hummingbird runway!
The mint family, which includes Nepeta, oregano, salvia, lavender, and mint, will be adored by long-tongued bees. Lupine, cudweed, parsley, and fennel are a few of the butterfly’s favorite flowers.
But milkweed is the only plant that caterpillars eat! Just be certain to plant the appropriate milkweed for your area. Here is a helpful guide to assist you in selecting the right milkweed for your region.
Bees are always working, but butterflies like to take a vacation. Therefore, why not design a butterfly spa? Just put some water in a shallow dish or pan.
Add some flat rocks after that. Make sure the pan is in the sun. Butterflies adore the sun!
It’s possible that bees also travel to the spa to unwind and hydrate. More is better, right?
Nothing makes us happier than taking a stroll around the inn gardens and witnessing this “home” we’ve built not just for visitors but also for lovely and useful pollinators!
Mexican Petunia is one of the flowers we grow at the inn. It attracts butterflies and is quite resilient. As do our visitors. We make sure they have some to take home as a memento of their visit. And of course to promote the pollinator garden movement, often known as #pollenlove around here.
Looking for other plants to plant for butterflies? Here is a wonderful list (scroll down to
We cultivate pockets of natural nectar for our bees, butterflies, and hummers while strolling around the inn’s grounds. Some of them you may remember from your stay at the inn. Here are some of our favorites:
A millionaire first This is a plant that we have in front of the inn, and visitors love the numerous hummingbirds and butterflies that it attracts. A gorgeous orange-red trumpet flower that blooms all summer long and is magnificent in the fall.
Hardy and early bloomers, zinnias entice all the beneficial bees to do their pollination duties! These can be found on the side “cut garden,” so named because a lot of the flowers cultivated there are cut here and used for in-room bouquets.
It’s important to keep Mexican Sunflower a secret. You’re in luck, I’m sharing it today! They blossom in the fall and persist until the first frost.
The monarch butterflies can be seen “roosting on this lovely plant” as they migrate south through our area.
If you’re lucky, you might notice them returning every year because they re-seed. This spring, we are growing some from seed because we have a bit more time. If you come by, you never know—you might even be able to take one home for your garden!
Mexican petunia is a robust bloom-producing pollinator, as was already mentioned. It blooms from June to November and yields lovely succulent nectar that the bees and butterflies may enjoy all year long.
Do you need to reduce your Mexican petunias?
Typically, a Mexican petunia only needs one annual pruning in late winter or early spring to remove any damaged, weak, or unwelcome stems back to the plant’s root system. During the flowering season, trimming spent flower stalks helps keep the garden looking tidy. Every few years, in the spring, trim Mexican petunia clumps back to a few inches above the ground to revitalize them.
The spread of this plant can be controlled with specific pruning methods. Cut off any spent Mexican petunia blooms before they set seed and pluck away any stems that have fallen to the ground and become rooted in the soil.
Mexican petunias are they forbidden?
Mexican petunias can bring beauty to your garden if you take care to select cultivars that are not invasive and that you can keep up with and manage.
blue-purple petunias? Mexican petunias may initially be mistaken for regular garden flowers.
Ruelliasimplex, a fast-growing perennial with green to purple stems and green leaves, are what Mexican petunias are in reality. This plant’s invasive, wild version is so aggressive that some states have prohibited it, while others have put it on a watch list of invasive plants. Mexican petunias are categorized as “extremely invasive” by the state of Florida.
Ruellia simplex, also known as R. tweediana, R. brittoniana, R. coerulea, and R. malacosperma, is a plant native to Mexico and western South America that can withstand freezing temperatures in USDA hardiness zones 8 to 11. Even though the plants were given their correct name by a German botanist in 1879, most horticulturists today call them R. tweediana. Mexican bluebell, hardy petunia, wild petunia, Britton’s wild petunia, and perennial petunia are examples of common names.
Mexican petunias may thrive in a variety of environments but prefer moist or marshy soils, such as those found at the edges of ponds and lakes or in moist woods. In dry soils, they can endure drought and even full sun.
The plants’ colorful, spectacular blossoms are fleeting, yet they bloom for a long time, starting in early spring and lasting until frost. The shrubs have an approximate width of one foot and a height of one to four feet.
Most of these lovely, hardy plants have the unfortunate drawback of spreading out of control and displacing good plants.
Invasive Mexican petunias develop thick, horizontal roots that extend above and below the surface of the earth, making them challenging to uproot. Even small portions that are missed can reseed. When ripe, seed capsules on the plants open and release seeds all over the place. Years after the plants have been eliminated, the seeds may still be present in the soil and begin to grow.
Even worse, when the seeds are moist, a mucous-like goo forms. They adhere like glue to dry soil once they are dropped there.
Mexican petunia varieties that gardeners can enjoy and cultivate responsibly have been developed by breeders. Because they are sterile cultivars, “Mayan Purple” and “Mayan White” do not produce seeds that self-sow.
‘Mayan White’
Mexican petunias are invasive, however “Mayan White” and its relative “Mayan Purple” are sterile substitutes.
Home Depot locations in Florida presently carry “Mayan Purple” and “Mayan White.” By 2014, the breeder, Rosanna Freyre, hopes to have the cultivars more widely accessible. This may involve cooperating with a North Carolina mail order business and a Georgia company with statewide distribution.
Another possibility is “Katie.” Due to its lovely blossoms and simplicity of maintenance, Texas A&M University has named this less aggressive, dwarf Ruellia a Texas Superstar.
‘Katie’ has blooms that are purple, pink, or white and grows to a height of about 6 inches. However, because it is fertile and spreads through seed, researchers from the University of Florida and the Institute of Food and Agricultural Services do not advise using it.