Marybeth McCown

As the saying goes, a bird in hand is worth two in the bush. Recently I found myself with an actual bird in my hand! I can now say that a bird in the palm of your hand is a priceless experience. Who cares about birds sitting in a bush? And how very special that the bird was a helpless hummingbird.

Three inches long, from beak tip to tail tip, the hummingbird lying in my hand clad in sleek, soft green iridescent feathers, lay ever so still as I cupped it into the pocket of my palm. The hummer had flown into our garage and then thinking to escape through the lighted but closed windows, it flew instead into a tangle of web. I found it fluttering hopelessly entangled in tough strands of an old spider web. Catching it gently between window pane and my left hand, I opened my fingers enclosed over the tiny body to examine for possible injury. Seeing the tangle and sticky mess of web on its legs, I began gently untangling its needle-thin legs from strands of spider web. I kept expecting it to struggle. It never did. When at last its legs were free, I released it by lifting my hand toward the sky. It zipped up and out of my palm flying to a high branch of one of our elm trees.

A happy ending for this visiting hummer. I had attracted him with feeders outside my kitchen window. But sugar water (4 to 1 ratio) was only a dessert. Summer blooming perennials like my potted Red salvia attract nectaring hummingbirds. And now I know that summer blooming daylilies attract hummingbirds as well. I have a favorite one now — the bright and lovely Orange Double Daylily. On The Southern Bulb Company’s website it is described as “the old fashioned double trumpet orange blooming daylily. This orange daylily in its single form is known as the tawny daylily and botanically as Hemerocallis fulva. This is the double selection known as Hemerocallis fulva “Kwanso.”

Last year I purchased bulbs of the Orange Double Daylily which blooms now in my sunny summer garden beds. Where did I find such a doubly beautiful lily? Last fall I bought bulbs for my beds at the From Bulbs to Bloom Sale and Conference hosted each October by Smith County Master Gardeners (SCMG). Annually we offer reliable bulbs that grow and bloom in our soil and climate.

If you, too, want to plant low maintenance perennial bulbs then look for this sale on the Smith County Master Gardener Facebook page or with questions phone 903-590-2994 or Email SmithMGHelpDesk@gmail.com.

You will not want to miss advance online bulb sales which is Oct. 7-16. Be sure to attend the in-person From Bulbs to Blooms Sale and Conference. It is scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 19 from 9 a.m. until 1 p.m. on the Pollard Methodist Church campus, 3030 New Copeland Rd. in Tyler.

Prior to releasing the hummingbird, I recall looking into his little black beady eye and experiencing gratitude for his happy ending. I freed him to fly another day to do what he was hatched to do: nectar among my flowering summer blooms and keep the circle of life going. I concluded that a hummingbird should not be in one’s hand because his pollinating task is worth more than any two sitting around in a bush!

Watch Smith County Extension Agent Greg Grant’s presentation about Double Orange Daylilies and other summer and fall blooming bulbs at https://tinyurl.com/watchbulbvideo .