If hope really is the thing with feathers (Emily Dickinson), then we might be thinking more than usual about taking care of our winged friends, the birds. Some of the tiniest feathers belong to hummingbirds. In the Northeast, where I live, ruby-throated hummingbirds the size of fat moths zip past us in spring, and again in fall; sometimes, they stay and nest over summer. They disappear as magically as they arrive. Regardless of their trajectory, these vibrating wonders always stop and feed on jewelweed flowers, which open in late summer and collapse with the first frost. Wherever I have gardened in New York City, I have planted jewelweed, and every late summer, the hummingbirds have appeared, seemingly out of the urban ether.
Where there is jewelweed there will be hummers. Plant it, and they will come.
Photography by Marie Viljoen and Vincent Mounier.
Jewelweed is Impatiens capensis, an elegant North American relative of the flat-flowered impatiens that we call “impatience” or touch-me-not, that are planted en masse every summer in shady gardens and window boxes. Etymological esoterica: Capensis, jewelweed’s species name, means “of the Cape” [of Good Hope] and was given in error by the Dutch botanist Nicolaas Meerburgh in the late eighteenth century, who mistook it for a southern African species.
The flowers are a warm and electric orange in profile; their throats are flecked with rich amber speckles. (If they are all-yellow, they are closely related Impatiens pallida.) The flowers are delicate funnels that guide hummingbirds and bumblebees to the curved spurs beyond—each a nectar-filled receptacle that makes a jewelweed patch irresistible to these pollinators. Each bloom is poised on a threadlike stem that allows it to dance in the smallest breeze. Sometimes the breeze is the minute buzzing of a hummingbird’s wings, beating 70 times per second.
The tiny birds stay suspended, sipping the collected nectar from the flower’s curved spur before resting on a nearby branch, recovering from an active heartbeat of 1,200 times a minute.
The plants can grow tall, up to four feet and occasionally more (although my container-grown jewelweed is usually about two-and-half feet high).
When they are young, jewelweed stems are juicy and tender. I have rubbed their sappy springtime juice on my ankles to guard against poison ivy, and possibly this Native remedy has worked (so far, no rashes). By late summer their sturdier, jointed branches reach maturity and begin to bloom. Their flowering period lasts until frost.
Pollinated flowers form spring-loaded seed capsules that explode at a light touch, shooting tender seeds in all directions.
Jewelweed is best suited to dappled shade, high shade, and partial shade (translation: shade under deciduous trees, under tall trees with high branches, and shade for part of the day—preferably the afternoon). In woodland gardens and on forest edges it thrives. It dislikes drying out and is one of the few plants you can water with impunity.
Jewelweed has been described as one of the rare plants that can outcompete hyper-invasive garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata): once you have it, it is there to stay, in a tangle of bright, late-summer flowers, heaving with bees and electric with darting hummingbirds. In container gardens it is easier to manage—simply thin out the conspicuous seedlings in spring. Somehow, the hummingbirds will still discover it, even if your jewelweed patch is just two plants strong.
See also:
- How to Plant a Pollinator Garden in a Pot
- Ask the Expert: Edwina von Gal, on How to Help the Birds
- Buzz Worthy: How to Help Honeybees Through Winter, With Island Bee Project in Brooklyn
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