This website has nothing to do with TV personality Paul James,
             The Gardener Guy of Tulsa, Oklahoma

About Me / Contact Me!

Fall in the Flower Garden 2009

You surely know black-eyed Susans, also called Gloriosa daisies or yellow ox-eye daisies, and many of these are still looking wonderful. Their genus (their closest relatives in the terminology of scientists), Rudbeckia, contains many species and varieties. The black-eyed Susan is of the species Rudbeckia hirta. These can average in size from the diminutive "Becky" that is just 8 inches tall, to 36" Gloriosa daisies in both single and double varieties. My favorite is "Prairie Sun" with green "eyes" or centers because they bloom profusely for months on stiff stems. They make fabulous cut flowers, but I find the plants tend to die out in just a year or two. No matter, I'll always buy more.

Then there is R. fulgida "Goldsturm" (botanists often save space by using just the first initial of the genus) which is one of the best and best known. A plant or two planted in full sun and rich soil will form a clump 5 feet across and 2-3 feet tall in just a few years. Want a tall one? For me R. nitida, "Herbstsonne" grows on up to 6 feet tall, and has all-yellow flowers. Because of its height, it needs a little staking to support the stems.

Darwin would explain, I bet, that fall flowers tend to be taller than spring flowers because they need to tower over the grasses of their native prairies. One of my favorite tall flowers is called snakeroot or bugbane (Cimicifuga ramosa). These flowers are very fragrant, attracting bees - and even making passers-by turn their heads. I love the smell, though not everyone does, just as not everyone loves the taste of anchovies. The flowers, on stems up to 8 feet tall, are fuzzy white bottle-brush flowers, with lots of smaller bottlebrushes on side-stems waiting right now (in bud) to flower later into the fall. It comes in a smaller purple- or black-leafed variety, "Hillside Black Beauty", which is a real beauty. It's a great cut flower, too. Grow it in full sun in dry or moist soil.

Another plant with bottlebrush flowers is burnet (Sanguisorba canadensis). This is a native plant that likes full sun and moist, rich soil. I grow it near my stream, and is quite dramatic now - 6 feet tall, and a clump 8 feet around aftr 10 years of growing. The flowers need to be appreciated outdoors as they don't do well in a vase - they shed white fluff immediately. Greater burnet (S. officinalis) is smaller and has dark red blossoms that are tidy and look great in a vase with snakeroot.

Pink Turtlehead (Chelone lyonii) is looking fabulous in my shady, moist primrose garden right now (in the shade of apple trees), and will bloom through the month and into October. It stands 3-4 feet tall and has half a dozen or more pink blossoms on each stem. As I was photographing it, bumblebees were crawling inside the "mouths" of the turtle head-like blossoms, and buzzing like crazy, and going in and out of each flower more than once. I am not used to bumblebees being vocal. Were they singing, perhaps? Or complaining? I'd like to think they were having a good time. I also grow it in full sun where it started blooming in mid-August and is now starting to look bedraggled. They key to success? It must have wet to moist soil. It also comes in a white variety (C. glabra), which I have seen in the wild. The white ones tend to look dirty, not a pure white, and are much shorter. Turtlehead is a great cut flower.

Joe Pye Weed (Eupatorium purpureum) is blooming now alongside my stream in full sun, and has been for a month or more. It is tall - up to 7 or 8 ft. I grow a cultivar known as "Gateway" and it outperforms the native varieties that also grow there: bigger flower heads, better color, longer lasting in a vase. I took mine out of my flowerbed after 5 years - but only with difficulty and a pick ax. Its root system is immense, so plant it where it can spread and never be moved. I have seen it in dry locations where it is less vigorous but still pretty.

Another great fall plant is Sneezeweed (Helenium autumnale). It does not make you sneeze. According to my favorite reference book on flowers, Manual of Herbaceous Ornamental Plants by Steven Still, it is named after Helen of Troy whose face allegedly launched a thousand ships - and a war. Sneezeweed is nice, but not that nice. It is 3-6 feet tall, according to the cultivar and growing conditions, and is in the aster family. It varies in color from pure yellow to orange and brown, with slightly reflexed petals (bent backwards) that are an inch or two in diameter, with a central button.

So go get some new varieties of fall flowers. There are plenty, and this is a good time to plant them.

Henry Homeyer is a garden designer and consultant. His Web site is www.Gardening-Guy.com. He may be reached at henry.homeyer@comcast.net or P.O. Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746.