Helenium ‘El Dorado’
What’s looking good now?
Much of our brick garden, which purports to have a blue and yellow theme and certainly was earlier with anchusa, camassia, euphorbias and hemerocallis, has recently become a very green and pleasant land with li le other colour. Now though the bright yellow heads of helenium ‘El Dorado’ are beginning to open their tutu flowers and will reintroduce the yellow element into this area. It’s a highly visible area as it’s the immediate view from all the house windows.
Heleniums are stalwarts of the herbaceous border. They come from an American family that crossed the Atlantic almost three centuries ago and have dwelt in our gardens ever since. During the last few decades several plant breeders, especially in Germany and Holland, have produced some remarkable new hybrids.
Though I’ve always liked them, it wasn’t until I saw ‘El Dorado’ a couple of years ago that I really fell for them. It’s like pure sunshine; large, bold flowers of pure yellow and a pleasant deportment makes it an exceptionally good plant.
Flowers go in and out of favour, but there are a few which seem to reinvent themselves, always remaining at the forefront. Heleniums have a multiplicity of images; they’re the plants that grew in your grandma’s garden, yet at the same time they’re at the forefront of naturalistic plantings in cu ing-edge schemes, accompanying wild grasses and other bold herbaceous subjects. They’re used in parks and municipal plantings but are equally at home in cameo designs with a few carefully chosen associates.
In our brick garden, ‘El Dorado’ is definitely up to the rough and tumble of the competition with other perennials and lots of
grasses. It’s a pleasure to see it once again!