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Cardinal flower is a showy plant- with scarlet-colored blooms. It is particularly attractive to hummingbirds - who have a preference for red and whose beak is a perfect match the tubular flowers. The blooms offer rich, sweet pollen and a very high pollen count which helps fuel hummingbird migration. This is a short lived perennial but it readily reseeds. In regular garden soil I dig a recessed basin around the plant, so that water collects. After bloom, I spread the seed around the area to prolong the life of the patch. This is certainly a plant that prefers wet edges to regular garden soil but I have had luck with the aforementioned technique and regular watering.
Photo Credit: Brooke Morse