Humm baby! Put out a welcome mat

Feed hummingbirds with nectar-rich flowers, shrubs

One of my great pleasures is watching hummingbirds flit about sipping nectar, hearing the “zoom” as they fly by, seeing them perched on high in my backyard garden. I’ve learned that in San Francisco the most common hummingbirds are Allen’s and Anna’s, although others can be sighted.

Hummingbirds will sip from feeders filled with red-dyed sugar water, but this will not sustain them. When they sip at flowers, they get sugar from nectar, but also protein and other nutrients from pollen, and small insects they eat when they find them in the flowers. So it’s important to have flowers for them as well as (or instead of ) sugar water.

They like funnel-shaped flowers or those with nectar-containing tubes. Although they do love red blossoms — and having red flowers should help bring them in at first — they will feed at just about any color blooms if they like the nectar. Because hummingbirds are native to North or South America (or both, since some migrate between the continents each year), many of their favorite plants are native to this region.

When you’re choosing flowers to grow for them, avoid double flowers.

Hummingbirds (and bees) find little they can use in a double flower, since stamens have become extra petals and nectaries are often buried too deeply in petals to be reached. Most hummingbird favorites don’t come in double-flowered varieties. But if you dream of hummingbirds at your flowers, don’t plant double-flowered versions of abutilon, fuchsia, petunia, snapdragon or columbine.

 Read how to grow a hummingbird garden on facing page, left.

If you wonder how to use succulents and cacti to make mixed container plantings, terrariums or vertical gardens, the hands-on public classes offered by Succulence in San Francisco’s Bernal Heights neighborhood will tell you what you need to know. Here are listings for upcoming classes: Vertical gardening: Nov. 4, Dec. 2 (offered monthly)

Terrariums: Oct. 14, Nov. 11, Dec. 9 (offered monthly)

Advanced vertical gardening: Nov. 18 Advanced terrariums: Oct. 21, Dec. 16 Classes are held 7-9 p.m. on Sundays at the store, 402 Cortland Ave. To learn more or register for a class, go to www.thesucculence.com/classes or call 415-282-2212.

The store, which sells succulents, cacti, air plants (tillandsias) and materials for making terrariums or vertical gardens, is open 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily.

Pam Peirce is the author of “Golden Gate Gardening.” Visit her website, www.pampeirce.com Email: food@sfchronicle.com