YELL DO FOR ME
In praise of those lemon-yellow sunflowers.
THE
first time I came across the perennial sunflower, Helianthus, was at Craigtoun Park in St Andrews and it was love at first sight.
What’s not to adore about a cheerful bunch of lemonyellow flowers reaching well above head height? To me, they represent summer on stilts.
I admit I have a weakness for the big and the bold and love the drama that they provide, which is why I’ve come to appreciate all of the crazy daisies from the damp meadows and wide prairies of the USA for their late-summer fireworks.
In recent years there’s been a fashion for combining these with grasses and if you have the space to do this on a grand scale then it can be effective, but I prefer to mix them in with the plants in the borders and let them form their own special relationships.
And there’s quite a selection to choose from.
As well as Helenium there is Echinacea, everyone’s idea of a classic prairie plant.
Although it’s known as the Purple Cone Flower it does come in other shades as well.
Like all of its cousins from across the pond, it’s a tough customer, able to withstand cold winters in Scotland, but it doesn’t like to get its feet wet, so plant in a sunny spot in free-draining soil.
There’s a reason why Monarda is known as ‘Bee Balm’. Plant this and your garden will be buzzing.
It comes in shades from red through lavender to yellow and white and at no more than 1m tall, it’s the smallest of the bunch,
Rudbeckia, with its strong gold and russet tones, packs a powerful punch and is ultra-hardy.
One of the best varieties is ‘Goldsturm’, which has long been a favourite for summer colour. It benefits from a feed of manure or compost at the start of the growing season.
Heliopolis, the North American Ox Eye is another tough customer that grows happily in Scotland so long as it doesn’t get waterlogged.
At 1.5m it hovers somewhere in between the tallest and smallest of the daisies from the plains, making it ultra-useful in the garden and if you want more of it you can either divide it or take basal cuttings in spring.
Tall perennials are useful in the garden if you want to create privacy during the summer months but don’t want a permanent screen.
A seating area, surrounded by perennial sunflowers and North American Ox Eyes is a cheerful spot from which to enjoy your garden without the fuss of installing a trellis or waiting for a hedge to grow.
And most of these prairie plants are trouble-free once their young foliage is too tough to be of interest to slugs.
They also last for a long time in a vase if cut before their buds have opened, so even if it’s raining you can still enjoy a touch of prairie sunshine indoors.