Mid-Atlantic Gardening: Yardening 5- jan 2014, in the snow, 0 by typwc

typwc wrote:
Okay okay okay, SSG. Pull up a chair and let me tell you how much I love Rudbeckia hirta 'Indian Summer'.... I saw it years ago at the Cylburn Arboretum and mentally bookmarked it as A Plant I Had To Grow.

It is everything great about the species BES magnified times two. Literally, it's twice as tall, twice as wide, blooms are twice as big (picture 1: petals are huge). I had both the species and the variety growing in my backyard by chance last year so the middle picture compares them (picture 2).

The plants that I let go to seed ended up being probably 3 1/2 feet tall. I'm not exaggerating. It went on flowering till frost, even though I never really faithfully deadheaded that plant. Indian Summer is as big as my species echinacea, and the flowers are bigger.

They seemed to be less susceptible to powdery mildew and insect damage, but YMMV (your mileage may vary).

The flowers are such a beautiful dark yellow that they glow in the dark (picture 4, late evening).

I grew them from seed that I started in pots (the few seeds I had left were precious).

I started seeds in spring, no flowers that first year, the foliage was evergreen because we had such a mild winter that year, and the cold stress turned the leaves a gorgeous purple color.
It refused to bloom at all until the second year. BUT IT WAS SO WORTH IT! :)

I regretted not planting MORE of it.

I can't attest to what year 3 will look like, if the plants will survive or reseed or what. Yes, I have lots of seed to share. Hopefully lots of volunteers too. :)

Hope this helps!

Editing to say that I was so inspired that I decided to update my avatar.



This message was edited Jan 27, 2014 2:17 PM