Wild Columbine

Aquilegia canadensis

Wild Columbine is the hummingbird flower. The nodding red-and-yellow spurred blooms hang from wiry stems in April and May at the precise moment ruby-throated hummingbirds arrive from their winter range in Central America. the flower and the bird evolved together, the spur length matched to the bill length. Watch a plant in early May and you'll see hummingbirds hovering at each flower, hovering and moving, hovering and moving, before the plant has barely leafed out around it. The blue-green, fan-shaped foliage is attractive all season. The plant self-sows readily in light shade and woodland edges, naturalizing into informal drifts that feel perfectly placed. It's one of the most adaptable natives available. full sun to part shade, average to dry soil, rocks, slopes, whatever you have. Short-lived as individuals but self-renewing as colonies. You plant it once and it stays.