Landscape Pizazz
As the weather starts to warm across the country and we finally get focused on flowers for a long and glorious summer I like to urge you to consider some rudbeckias.
Botanically speaking, the Black-Eyed Susan is a Rudbeckia. Larger selections are also called Gloriosa Daisies. The most famous is probably a Rudbeckia hirta known as Indian Summer, an All-America Selections winner and a Cut Flower of the Year Award winner by the American Specialty Cut Flower Growers Association.
Indian Summer is one gorgeous flower even if it is an annual. Some might argue it is a perennial or even biennial. Regardless it is unbeatable. The plant reaches 42 inches in height and produces its heart out with large, softball-sized blooms. A mass planting of these combined with a mass of purple coneflowers will make your border look like you are the gardener of the year.
New this year is Corona. Same size flowers, a little large eye but on a plant much more compact, around knee high.
There are 30 to 40 other species of Rudbeckia native to the United States. One of my favorites is the Rudbeckia fulgida. The Goldstrum variety was a U.S. Perennial Plant of the Year.
The flowers aren't nearly as large as Indian Summer, but they bloom until the first hard frost and then return in the spring. The leaves are fairly large, oval and dark green. Keep well watered during droughts, and remove dead flower heads for maximum bloom. Most years, gardeners are rewarded with more flower stalks being produced in late summer or early fall.
I occasionally run across a gardener who thinks these are too aggressive and vigorous, but I feel passionately that these are among the best plants for any gardener— beginner or expert.
Goldstrum is great planted along sunny borders. I have combined them with the Biloxi Blue and the violet Tapien verbenas. They also work well with asters, goldenrods, homestead purple verbena, and liatris or gay feather.
The Rudbeckia triloba is another outstanding species native to a wide area in the United States. This was a Georgia Gold Medal winner, and it would qualify just about anywhere. It is desperately in need of a name. I wish they would have called it Georgia Gold. It is a prolific blooming perennial that is sometimes treated as an annual.
It has an abundance of yellow flowers with button-shaped black centers produced at the ends of many-branched stems. It is very erect, growing about 3 feet tall, spreading and bushy. The leaves are dark green and divided into three oval parts, hence the name triloba.
Plant in the middle of the border with cosmos, zinnias or the new Angelmist angelonias called Summer Snapdragons. Be bold and create large drifts of color.
If you would like a Rudbeckia with a green eye, look no farther than Irish Eyes. Or even better the more recent Prairie Sun another outstanding All America Selections winner. This plant has a green cone and 5-inch single gold flowers with primrose tips. With its foliage reaching about 30 inches tall, Irish Eyes are striking and unusual. They are grown as an annual or short-lived perennial.
If conditioned, Black-eyed Susans are great cut flowers with a long vase life. The secret is to place a cardboard sheet on top of a deep pan containing 100 to 110 degree water. Cut holes in the cardboard to allow the stems to be placed through it and into the water. When the petals are flat and the stem straight, it is ready for the vase.
