Tag: Brown-Eyed Susan
Mid-August Blooms, Part 1
I had a happy reunion with the garden after Judy and I returned from our trip late Saturday afternoon. The first thing I noticed were bright swaths of yellow that seemed to dominate the area in front of the house. Yellow – sometimes clear and light, sometimes golden, or shading into orange.
Ten Favorite Stars for Sunny Gardens
In my last post I wrote about an article in the current issue of Gardens Illustrated called ‘100 Plants Every Gardener Should Grow’. While I took issue with the title, it has inspired me to do a much more modest list of my own. I want to stress up front that just because these plants …
Is Yellow Just Too Common?
Why is it that Sissinghurst has a White Garden but not a Yellow Garden? Perhaps yellow is just a bit too insistently cheerful, like those morning people who sing and bustle about while you try to burrow into your newspaper. Also, I read somewhere that yellow is the most common color for wildflowers, and its …
Last Flowers Standing
It’s the middle of October and the garden is getting drowsy, sliding into its annual decline. In fact I was thinking of calling this post Decline and Fall (get it – fall?), but Judy says I use too many puns. Although, some of the roses are having a late season spurt of energy, particularly our …
Companion Plants for Asters
Aster means “star”, and certainly Asters are stars of the autumn garden. But stars need supporting actors, or the show can be pretty boring. For example, those one person shows where the star spends two hours impersonating, say, Teddy Roosevelt. Be honest, would you pay good money to see that? I didn’t think so. Which …
The Garden in Mid-September
Happy Bloom Day! On the 15th of every month Carol from May Dreams Gardens hosts Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day, enabling gardeners to share and compare what’s in flower in their little patch of earth. In our garden the most bountiful blooms at the moment are provided by Brown-Eyed Susan (Rudbeckia triloba). This Rudbeckia makes me …
Perennials for Fall Color
We usually think of fall color in terms of trees and shrubs. But there are many herbaceous plants that also offer good color in autumn. Here are a few in my garden right now. Starry Solomon’s Plume (Smilacina stellata) has long-lasting golden yellow foliage. Deep red berries add contrast, though most of the berries are …
A Quiet Autumn: GBBD, October 2013
Autumn seems to be pretty subdued in these parts. Very little foliage color, and fewer flowers than normal. My theory is that many of the flowers threw in the towel early because it has been pretty dry since the beginning of August. And the warm fall has kept the leaves green late into the season. …
Blooms of Late September
When we returned from vacation a week ago the garden was looking a bit neglected. The grass was overgrown, perennials were flopping and needed rectification. This past weekend I started getting things back into proper order, but also took stock of our autumn blooms. Of course, autumn is about asters, and I have many species …
My Favorite Susan
These are the days of the blooming Susans, members of the genus Rudbeckia. There’s the Black Eyed Susan generally grown as an annual or biennial (Rudbeckia hirta). Then there’s another Black Eyed Susan, a perennial that also goes by the common name Orange Coneflower (R. fulgida) and which has produced the ever popular variety ‘Goldsturm’. …
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