Hi Bill! I'm looking at your videos and they are wonderful!!!! I have questions on the first 2 I looked at so I'm stopping cause I will never remember them all if I keep going.

The one where you're feeding him is !

'Hummingbird Flowers' - It's great the way you bungeed your pots to the rail.
That Fuschia triphylla is huge! Having an "ut-oh" moment here, cause I bought 3 little plants in March and have put them all in one average size hanging basket. Do ya think I should split them into their own pots? Every year (been gardening for 3 now) I say I'm going to plant Tithonia, but I haven't done it yet!
I have planted the large sized Zinnias tho and they use them alot.

'Hummingbird Feeders' - Great message to have in the beginning there! I noticed the red plate (I think) behind the 97 cent feeder. Can you tell me how you attached those? Got a shot of the whole thing by any chance?
And the last feeder (saucer type)- how come the liquid looks white?

Ok, I'm off to view more...

Diana
Upstate SC
Zone 7b

Wow! I never thought anyone would ever take my videos that seriously, Diana!

We decided to use bungee cords to hold the window boxes on the deck rail because we didn't want to use screws to fasten them in place and have water seeping down into holes in the wood to make it rot even faster. I started by putting duct tape over all the holes inside the bottom of the empty boxes and then drilled a row of new holes along the outer bottom edge that faces away from the deck so all the water would drain out there and drip down to the ground instead of on the deck rail.

The bungee cords also allow you to move things around whenever you want, like if you discover something needs more shade or more sun, etc. The only thing is that you have to be really careful whenever you're fastening them in place or undoing them. Because there's so much tension on the elastic cord, it can easily slip out of your hand and fly back and hit you in the face or eye. It can also go sliding along the top edge of the window box and effectively slice off whatever you've planted, right at the soil line. I did that once last year and kicked myself for weeks on end afterward!

If your Fuchsia triphylla is the same kind as mine, I'd give it as much room as possible. I had never even seen it before last spring and I only bought just one at first, but before I even started planting, I liked it so much I went back and bought another one. So that's actually two plants you see in the video, but in a fairly small window box (about 16" wide). I left them in that container over the winter and stored them in our basement where it stays about 50 degrees all winter. They actually bloomed off and on all winter but in a very light peachy color rather than bright orange. This spring I divided them and gave each one its own 14" pot and they're growing out really well. The old growth at the bottom of the stems has gotten really hard and woody like a shrub and they're growing into nice little bushes, but not blooming much yet. I took lots of cuttings off them in late winter, but those new plants seem very sensitive to hot sun so I've had to keep them strictly in the shade so far.

I'd really recommend you try Tithonia. It's too late now to start them from seed for this year, but if you can find the plants already grown at a nursery, you could still get them going in time. In fact, my sister just planted hers yesterday. Since all of my stuff has to be grown in containers on the deck, I only have room for just one of them, but I plant it in a big tree pot (18" across and 18" deep) with lots of compost added to the soil and it gets about 8 feet tall. It needs to be staked really well because high winds can break it so easily, but it always draws so many hummers. You can see in one of my videos how they even perch on the branches to guard their territory! I guess they like it so much because it's native to their wintering grounds in Mexico so they're already really familiar with it.

Oh, I was hoping no one would notice those silly red plastic plates I used last year! We just had them on hand as picnic supplies and one day I thought, hey, this would be like a stop sign for any h'birds that see it! So I fastened a whole bunch of them all around the deck. The ones hanging behind the small feeders were simply fastened in place with some hardware wire. I punched a small hole through the plate near the top edge, fed a couple feet of wire through the hole, then cut and twisted the wire into a loop that would fit over the globe-shaped light fixtures on the deck. Then I cut another loop of wire to hang in front of that with an S-hook attached to its bottom so I could hang the feeder from the wire but also easily remove it for cleaning and refilling.

I'm not sure why the nectar in the last saucer feeder looked white unless it was just the way the light was reflecting off the vinyl siding on the house from that angle. It couldn't have been spoiled if they were still eating from it!

Thanks for all your questions! It's so nice to know someone is actually paying so much attention! Those videos have been on YouTube ever since last September, but I've hardly ever gotten very many hits or comments on them...

Thanks again!

Bill McClure
Zone 6A

Diana,

The white liquid looks like a HEAVy sugar content, but I'm sure Bill will eplain. His video's are awesome!

Pam NJ 6B

Hi Bill and thanks for all the explanations! Daughter of a teacher, I always need my curiosity satisfied. lol
I think the red plate is a great idea. Helps to display as much red color around where you want to bring hummers. I think I'll try that idea. Every little new idea is fun to try and see how it works in your yard. And isn't it always funny to see another hummer lover turn those little wires that come with the 97cent feeders into a perch for our little jewels?

I have Fuchsia 'Gartenmeister Bonstedt' (I'll try to remember to post a pic of it tomorrow) and it is getting a good size on it already and it's only June. So after seeing yours, I think I'll transplant it. It is getting really, really HOT here now. I am keeping it in only early morning sun and shade the rest of the day. I hope it doesn't mind being transplanted at this stage of the game.

I've finished watching all of your videos (when you making more? lol) and I think I only have one more question. What's the pretty white plant on the trellis?

Thanks so much for sharing them with us! And again thanks for taking the time to answer all my questions!


We don't have video equipment, but I do take short videos with my camera. You can check them out here if you like.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB9kz0276rk&feature=channel


Diana
Upstate SC
Zone 7b

You're welcome, Diana. I just can't believe I've finally found people who can actually appreciate my h'bird videos!

You mentioned how I had used the red wires that come with the feeders as perches for the birds to sit on... Yeah, it seemed like a good idea at the time, but after summer was over and I started looking at my videos, I found the red color of the wire kinda distracting, like it took some of your attention away from the bird. This year I'm going to use black picture wire instead. I've used that before, and it never ceases to amaze me how any kind of wire hardly even bends at all whenever a hummer perches on it. They really do weigh almost nothing at all!

I'm afraid I can't compare fuchsia varieties with you because when I bought both of my original plants last year, it didn't have any tags in them at all and when I asked the name of it at the cash register all they could tell me was, "Uh, it's some kind of fuchsia. Oh, and it can take a little more sun than a regular one..." Wow, that really helps a lot, doesn't it?! I had to go online just to find out the triphylla name. When I went back to the same nursery this spring, they hadn't grown it this year, so I was really glad I had successfully overwintered mine and started so many new cuttings on my own. If you do transplant yours again, be sure to keep it in the shade for a good while afterward. Mine have been really touchy about that so far.

Oh, the white flower on the trellis that you asked about is a mandevilla vine. Kind of a long story there... My sister gave me a red mandevilla last year, a few months early for my birthday because that's when they were for sale everywhere. It was absolutely breathtaking:



It was totally root-bound in a small pot though and as soon as I transplanted it into a larger pot, it started to wilt. I kept trying everything I knew, but it just kept getting sicker and sicker until the whole thing had completely died. I had read on the net that it needed really good drainage, so I had added some sand to the soil when I transplanted it, and that's the only thing I could figure that could have killed it -- some kind of disease or something in that sand. (Never again!)

I was really disgusted, but I had taken several cuttings off it before it died, but only four of them made it through the winter. I just checked them today and now those are completely covered with spider mites sucking all the juice out of them! Apparently, I'm just not meant to have that kind of plant!

Anyway, after the original red one died, I was telling the owner of the g'house where my sister had bought it about it, and she just picked up one of the white ones she still had on hand and told me to take it for free to replace the dead one! She's become a good friend of the family because she's renting the g'house space from my brother to run a retail location for her own g'house business, but I had no idea she would be that generous!

In any case, I successfully overwintered the white one and it's starting to grow up the same trellis again this year. Since my red cuttings were still so small, I gave in and bought a small red mandevilla when I saw them at Lowe's this spring, but I don't think the flowers on that variety are as big or as lush as that first red one that I lost. One of these days, I'm going to succeed in getting red and white mandevillas all mixed together on the same trellis!

I guess I'll be shooting more h'bird videos this summer, but there aren't quite enough here yet to warrant sitting out in the heat with the camcorder yet. I didn't get swarmed last year until around the first of August and after that I sat out there with the video camera every chance I got until they had mostly all left for the winter.

Hey, your video was good too! I always love hearing the sounds they make, both of the buzzing hum of the wings and the electronic chirping vocalizations. I always tell people that h'birds aren't generally considered songbirds, but they do sound like music to my ears! Whenever I'm out on the deck and I hear one of those sounds, I immediately freeze, no matter what I'm doing and slowly look around, hoping to catch a glimpse of it before it darts off again. Sometimes I keep hearing them, sounding really close, but never see anything!

By the way, my very first h'bird video, from the summer before, got deleted from YouTube because of copyright on the background music I had used, even though it was all just instrumental classic stuff! That one was more of an educational type video where I inserted all kinds of information and statistics about hummers. I called it "Hummingbird Hollow" -- the unofficial name I've given our little piece of land here because of the deep gully that slopes down behind our house, which our deck overlooks. It's mostly forested and you can watch the hummers sitting in the branches of the nearby trees before they come zooming in to feed or chase each other off. Just wish I knew of someplace else I could post that video online where the copyrighted music wouldn't be a problem...

Bill McClure
Zone 6A

THanks for the great answers to all my questions, Bill! I didn't know there was a white Mandevilla vine. Thought they just came in red and pink. Live and learn. It's very pretty, esp. for a "freebie"

I totally agree on the "song" of the hummers. I just love to listen to their little chittering. By the time they are leaving here in October every year, we think we hear them inside the house! We know there's not one inside, but we are sure we here that little chit, chit, chit...

Sorry to hear about Hummingbird Hollow being removed. I see YouTubes all the time that have music backgrounds in them. What - did the owner of the music object or something? That's strange. Don't these video uploading places give ppl the songs to use? I really don't know how that works.

Diana
Upstate SC
Zone 7b

Here's the pic of my fuchsia





Looks just like yours I think. There's 3 in that one little basket. So I guess I didn't really give them enough room. If I leave them alone for this summer, I'll definitely put them in 3 separate pots next year after the info you gave me.

Diana
Upstate SC
Zone 7b

Your fuchsias do look a little crowded in that pot, Diana. They'll probably do okay, just won't get as big as they would otherwise. It's always a fine line with container gardening between having a nice full display and getting too rootbound and needing to be watered constantly.

As for copyright on YouTube, it's a long story. YouTube was bought out by Google a while back and then some kind of legal battle erupted between them and Warner Bros. music group. WMG went on a big tear, claiming copyright ownership of anything on YT that contained any music that they owned, even when it's just a little few seconds clip of it. So, in just a few days, millions of videos simply vanished from YT and all the members (like me) went into rages.

You see, there are lots of different fandom groups out there for every TV show imaginable and most of them have been using popular songs to make music-video tributes to their favorite shows. When you get nit-picky about the copyright laws, it's all illegal since the fans don't really own the music or the video clips they were using, but most companies turned a blind eye until Warners went on their big tirade and ruined everyone's fun.

I know there must be alternatives to YT out there, but I've never had any experience with them, so I don't know how far WMG's tyrannical influence extends. It's so frustrating to go to all the time and bother of uploading a video and trying to share it with like-minded people, only to have it vanish like that.

Bill McClure
Zone 6A

I share your pain, Bill, on the music with videos. I've been using Photobucket for my pictures and video. I recently used the Windows Movie Maker program to do a video of chickadees in my ceramic bird house. I used some of the audio musical clips that were made available in the program. Now wouldn't you think that would be OK? Windows Movie Maker made no mention of there being copyright issues, so I assumed that Movie Maker had worked this out, and I didn't need to worry about this. Not so! After going to all the trouble to carefully match the audio, when I tried to post the finished video in Photobucket, I was not permitted. Apparently, that is called "redistribution" and is no longer permissible under Photobucket rules.

After your experience, I got scared. I went back and looked at a video I posted last year that had music. This music I had bought on line for a very modest fee, and then put it in the video. Fortunately, the video was still there, music intact. I wonder if it's because I paid for it that it made a difference.

As an artist, I have total sympathy for artists who need to get compensated for the use (and infinite reuse) of their work. However, couldn't a system be devised where folks could pay a small amount and be allowed to use that music in a video? Seems like it would be a win win for everyone. Maybe that's already being done. I'm going to have to look into it. Do you know of any sources for permissible music? I wouldn't mind paying a small amount--99 cents per clip, maybe, or even a few dollars.

I am amazed that the Movie Maker clips that were offered as part of the program were deemed illegal. I would have appreciated some warning from the Movie Maker program before I went to all that trouble to use the clips that I assumed were legal. I did post the video, but had to remove the music to load it into Photobucket.

Hi Bill & Kristin...thank you both for explaining more about the music stuff so I can better understand it. I have never even tried to figure out that add-on stuff on either PB or YT. Guess I'm lucky I haven't. I guess everyone is still figuring out things on the internet, especially the music world. Sorry about the frustrating experiences you two have had with it.

Diana
Upstate SC
Zone 7b

Kristin, as far as I know, any use of any music by any private citizen is strictly forbidden. I even remember seeing something on YouTube's FAQ pages where it says it doesn't matter if you've paid to buy the music; you still don't own the rights to redistribute it. The music company are the only ones who can do that, and they've obviously gotten really greedy about squeezing every last penny they can out of every last time any song ever gets played anywhere.

So far, I've only found one site that offers non-copyrighted music that anyone can use for whatever they want. It's called FreePlay Music. Here's the link:

http://www.freeplaymusic.com/

They have a huge selection of all different kinds of musical types, and it can be kinda overwhelming sometimes trying to find something that matches the mood of what you're trying to convey. I was thinking I should try to find something there to use to replace the music in my "Hummingbird Hollow" video so I could upload it at YT again and not have to worry about it being deleted again. I'd just have to find a few hours of free time when I can sit and listen to a bunch of selections to find something to use!

By the way, the music I originally used was a classical piece called "Morning Prelude". I'm sure you'd recognize it if you heard it. They always used it in cartoons when I was growing up whenever they'd show some tranquil morning scene with the sun coming up over the mountains, etc. Oh, and I also used a tiny clip from the 1972 song "Hummingbird" by Seals & Crofts. Come to think of it, that's probably what got it deleted since it was a pop song. (And a crappy one at that! But the only one I could ever find that even mentioned a h'bird.)

Oh, well...

Bill McClure
Zone 6A