Black-Eyed Susan

Black-Eyed Susan

Rudbeckia fulgida

(rud-BEK-ee-a) (FUL-jih-duh)

I decided to post this flower since it reminds me a little bit of the sun, which we need around here. After getting an extended snow and ice storm last night it is raining hard now with up to an inch expected. That’s after our weekend battle with sub zero temperatures.

Black-eyed Susans are a wonderful true perennial that gradually increases it size in the garden. It’s not fussy but needs a good amount of sun to do best.

Rear view

Black-eyed Susan

Rudbeckia hirta 'Sonora'

(rud-BEK-ee-a) (HER-tuh)

Rear view of a Black eyed Susan flower. Double Wordless Wednesday special.

Koi Fish

Cyprinus carpio

Toto Gold Dwarf Black-eyed Susan

Dwarf Black-eyed Susan

Rudbeckia hirta ‘Toto Gold’

(rud-BEK-ee-uh) (HER-tuh)

Cherry Brandy Black-eyed Susan

Black-eyed Susan

Rudbeckia hirta 'Cherry Brandy'

(rud-BEK-ee-a) (HER-tuh)

Prairie Sun Black-eyed Susan

Black-eyed Susan
Rudbeckia hirta 'Prairie Sun'
(rud-BEK-ee-a) (HER-tuh)
Synonyms: Gloriosa Daisy

Black-eyed Susan

Black-eyed Susan

Rudbeckia hirta 'Denver Daisy'

(rud-BEK-ee-a) (HER-tuh)

Black-eyed Susan

Black-eyed Susan
Rudbeckia hirta 'Sonora'
(rud-BEK-ee-a) (HER-tuh)

This seems like a new variety of Black-eyed Susan but may have been around for a while. I am thinking it is new since this is the first year I have seen it for sale at several places. I bought one for a container and it looked pretty mixed with some white petunia and yellow Lantana. One thing that is remarkable is that of the 20 or so flowers on my 6-inch pot none were the same. Each had their own striking markings around the center of the flower. Some also had larger brown cones in the middle. It is quite a feast for the eyes, Lucky it only grows to 18 to 24 inches, as the flowers look heavy compared to the stalks.

Black-eyed Susans add a nice touch to summer. The yellow flowers are produced in copious numbers and liven up the garden at a time when it needs it. There are more and more varieties coming out all the time. It is an easy perennial to grow and can colonize rough areas. It doesn't seem to need much in the way of maintenance or care. The spreading habit is good way to get free plants.

Sunpatiens

Sunpatiens
Impatiens 'Sunpatiens Spreading Salmon’
(im-PAY-shuns)
Synonyms: SAKIMP005

Here is a new and interesting plant. Hybridized from New Guinea Impatiens these flowers can take full sun. I must admit to doing something that I don’t normally do and that is buying plants without researching them. Gardening trends come and go all the time and I am usually loath to ride them. Later adaptation is okay because then the new thing has been proven. Resisting temptation at the nursery is something I really try to enforce.

Last week we got a large annual order that needed to be filled by this weekend. One of the items was two dozen New Guinea Impatiens for near a beautiful free form swimming pool. The nursery didn’t have any regular N.G.I.s we decided to change to Nonstop Begonias. Since the Sunpatiens were sitting there and they looked nice. One tray of six ended up on the truck. At the job I needed a few plants to under plant a large Hibiscus tree and these Sunpatiens looked great against the dark green Hibiscus foliage. This is where I lucked out as the ‘Spreading’ series of Sunpatiens is specifically for containers.

So for Sunpatiens there are three series each come with a good variety of colors. The Compact series is probably going to be the most viable in my opinion. Still getting up to 36 inches tall and quite wide having a slightly smaller habit is desirable to me. The Spreading series and Vigorous series look good for mass plantings. I used the extra couple of plants I had in the little perennial border by the driveway. I will report back later about their performance during the season.

Come join us at Today’s Flowers . The links open at 1400 GMT. It is a great bunch of people and you get flowers from all over the world.


Indian Summer Black-eyed Susan
Rudbeckia hirta 'Indian Summer'
(rud-BEK-ee-a) (HER-tuh)

Here is the Sunday bonus flower. I don’t remember who told me that this plant isn’t perennial but they were dead wrong. These are from a group of plants going on its fourth year. To me it has done just what a perennials should do, increase in flowering and size a little bit each year. This flower does well in containers too. It seems to be one of the longer blooming Rudbeckias out there. It blooms all season.

Summer Flowers

Variegated Garden Phlox
Phlox paniculata
(floks) (pan-ick-yoo-LAY-tuh)

Here are a couple of groups of summer flowers to brighten up Monday. Variegated Garden Phlox is a classy plant. It seems to grow a bit weaker than the regular Garden Phlox but certainly can hold its own in the border or en masse. The delicate pink and white shading of the flowers is always interesting and it seems to be fairly disease resistant.

Just about every one knows this next flower. It is a super reliable bloomer and always looks good this time of year. I just have to find a way to keep the deer away from them. Luckily they hadn’t descended on this patch yet.


Black-Eyed Susan
Rudbeckia fulgida
(rud-BEK-ee-a) (FUL-jih-duh)

Black eyed Susan and Coneflowers

Black eyed Susan and Cone flowers

Rudbeckia
(rud-BEK-ee-a)
Echinacea purpurea
(ek-in-AY-shee-a) (pur-PUR-ee-uh)

This was quite an effective mixture of flowers. This planting kind of looked a bit like a happy accident but got me thinking that planning something like this would probably work out. If I ever do another large scale Black eyed Susan planting there will definitely be some Coneflowers sprinkled through kind of randomly. One other note on some of the Black eyed Susans at work they are blooming in the shade. Well not full shade but darker than a part shade. Just another desirable trait of this great plant.

Since the addition of a lot more storage space on my network I decided to gather all of my memory cards and clean them off. They are the larger Compact Flash type of cards and have been very reliable. The fact that I still have a few 256MB and 512MB cards shows that they have been around for a while. There are also assorted 1 and 2 Gig cards and the two 8 GB cards I bought with the D700. Those were only $17.99 each and I am sure that were a couple of the smaller cards purchased for almost 3 times that amount. For fun I put the 256 card in the D700. You get 23 pictures. The other day after putting the 8GB card in the D70 I thought it said 22 pictures left. After looking for the pictures I realized it was reading 2.2 (2,200 pictures). That’s over 91 rolls of 24 exposure film. That should be enough to get the shot, don’t you think?

Here are two pictures from the 256MB disk. I hadn’t used it since 2007 when these were taken at the Pepsico World Headquarters, which is also the home of the Kendall Sculpture Garden in Purchase, New York. The White Birch (Betula jacquemontii) seems fitting as the colors are starting to come out here. The insect is unknown to me. The only other time I have seen it is on the little patch of Chinese Lanterns at the Estate. They come every year to eat some of the foliage. The date of these photos says November 25th, 2007.

Early Bird Gold Black-eyed Susan

Black-eyed Susan
Rudbeckia fulgida 'Early Bird Gold'
(rud-BEK-ee-a) (FUL-jih-duh)

This flower was blooming at the nursery and it looked good. I started to grab some and then remember the person whose house I am working on right now doesn’t like Black-eyed Susans. That is okay because after reading up on this plant I will be planting some of them soon.

This Rudbeckia is a new genetic development that was discovered at Dupont Nurseries in Louisiana. It consistently bloomed up to two months earlier than 'Goldsturm' and often blooms two months after it. Since it is not day-length dependent it can bloom in the spring in some places. It grows to about 24 inches tall. The flower was the ‘standard’ color and the petals seemed just a little thinner than most cultivars of fulgida.


Rudbeckias are easy to grow in well drained soil. If you give them some organic matter and water they will grow better but it is not necessary. They can grow in dry and lean soils also. Black-eyed Susan are also easy to divide and often have seedlings if you are looking to increase your supply. A good plant for the border or naturalized areas of the garden.

Black Eyed Susan and Daisy

Black Eyed Susan and Daisy

You’ll notice both of these flower pictures are shot off center. It is something that I plan on working on next year. My photography teacher would love to hear that. Exposure is the other photography issue I plan on tackling in 2009. Since a lot of my pictures tend to be centered and underexposed it is going to be a little difficult to break out of that style but if you don’t try new things life can quickly become a little stale, for me anyways.


With composition it sometimes can be just taking an extra second before you click the shutter to make sure that the picture is framed in a pleasing way. Exposure is more of a technical issue and therefore a little more complicated issue to resolve. The challenge of doing something that is a little different is what keeps me taking pictures. That and being outside and studying the details of flowers and nature.

That was quite a storm that blew through here yesterday. About 12 inches of snow came down fairly fast and this morning some freezing drizzle is icing the snow pack. I am glad the snow blower is in good condition and I should have probably used it when the snow was a little fluffier. There are so many things that need to be done today that I am going to venture out even though the roads look a mess. Good thing we have a couple of Jeeps and a couple of 4WD trucks. The old Jeep is perfect for days like this, as it really doesn’t matter what happens to it.

I am sure most people know that today’s flowers are a Black eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta) and Shasta Daisy (Leucanthemum x superbum). Two of my favorite perennials due to their dependability as far as hardiness and flowering go.

"Wasn't that a mighty storm
Wasn't that a mighty storm in the morning, well
Wasn't that a mighty storm, that blew all the people all away"

Black-eyed Susan

Black-eyed Susan
Wordless Wednesday

Rudbeckia 'Tiger Eye Gold'

Rudbeckia 'Tiger Eye Gold'

The Rudbeckia has been stunning this year. That little dry spell we had seemed to do wonders for them. Rather than try and write a lot about Rudbeckia here is a link to the Rudbeckia Fact Sheet/National Garden Bureau. There is a great slideshow of different Rudbeckia species and cultivars. They are calling 2008 the Year of the Rudbeckia and I have to agree.

That website was really the only one that had information on ‘Tiger Eye Gold’. It is a new variety of Rudbeckia and the first one that is a F1 Hybrid.


I am out of here early for some pictures and also have a social engagement tonight.

This is a Black and White Dahlia picture I got at the Trial Garden last week.

Black-eyed Susan - 'Becky Mix'

Black-eyed Susan
Rudbeckia hirta 'Becky Mix'
(rud-BEK-ee-a) (HER-tuh)

This annual has just been super this season. It has just kept blooming and is really showy. The ‘mix’ is a good range of yellow and yellow with red centers. This is one of the darker yellow and out of about six plants there has been a good mix of yellow/orangey shades. I really wish it were perennial like most of the other Black-eyed Susans. ‘Becky’ has stayed very compact and fit into the front of a border we planted this summer almost perfectly. You can see from the leaf sticking in the picture that it has kind of hairy spines. They don’t really hurt but the foliage feels weird.

Karen and I are taking a long weekend on the Jersey shore so this space will probably pick up again on Monday evening or Tuesday. The Labor Day Weekend is considered the end of summer here in the US. I have an action packed fall season planned for work and will be ready to dive in on Tuesday.

Three Group Flower Shots

Three Group Flower Shots

This summer I have been working on my group and plant combination shots with varying amounts of success. I thought I would post a few. The first is Purple Coneflower with Black eyed Susans. Both perennials have been having a super stellar year and I have noticed the Black eyes pretty much combine with anything.

The second shot is from a garden that I visited a couple of weeks ago. The Phlox has also had a fabulous year without too many mildew problems. The Trumpet Vine in the back was well tended (cut back) and added nicely to the overall garden.


This third shot is some cultivar of Black eyed Susan and was shot with a relative shallow depth of field. Having the 24mm lens has helped being able to get a lot of flowers into one picture. I wondered why 24mm was so comfortable for me and figured out that is how wide the Coolpix 8400 lens is.


We are going on a non-botanical photography mission today. More about that later if any of the pictures come out.

Daylily - Buttered Popcorn

Daylily
Hemerocallis 'Buttered Popcorn'
(hem-er-oh-KAL-iss)

Here is another Daylily flower portrait. ‘Buttered Popcorn’ was posted on this blog a little while ago. I saw it growing again at the nursery and got this shot. Despite the thunder and lighting I was able to grab this picture. I was there buying some BioPlex Transplanting Aid as we have some large shrubs to transplant next week. This is the only thing that seems to help with summer digging. 'Buttered Popcorn' is a lot like the 'Mary Todd' Daylily I posted recently but the flowers are smaller and more brilliant yellow.


In way I guess this is a repost because ‘Little Suzy’ (Rudbeckia speciosa 'Viette's Little Suzy') was posted last Friday. I snuck back into the commerical building and got a few more photos of this huge planting. Glad that I did, as it is even more in flower. It is quite a little flower patch. You should have seen the large patches of Daylilies they had there. Today I am going to the New York Botanical Garden and I might stop by and try and snag a couple of pictures of the 1000’s of Daylilies they have planted there. The wide angle lens has been helping getting shots like these. I still have to figure it out a little bit but I am trying.

Dwarf Black-eyed Susan

Black-eyed Susan
Rudbeckia speciosa 'Viette's Little Suzy'
(rud-BEK-ee-a) (spee-see-OH-suh)

A couple of flowers before we leave for North Carolina. This is dwarf and hardy form of the Black eyed Susan. It grows to 12 to 18 inches tall and is nice for the front of the border. This was quite a patch of flowers as this picture only shows half of them.

This is another shot of the flower I posted on Wednesday. I couldn’t say anything about it because it was Wordless Wednesday. It is a cultivar of False Sunflower named ‘Venus’. I found them to be very photogenic. There are nice to have in the garden since they are fairly tall but don’t need staking and they are drought tolerant. The large 3 to 5 flowers are considered semi-double.

False Sunflower
Heliopsis helianthoides 'Venus'
(hee-lee-OP-sis) (hee-lee-an-THOY-dees)
Synonyms: Rough Heliopsis, Orange Sunflower, Ox-Eye

'Prairie Sun' Gloriosa Daisy

Wordless Wednesday
Gloriosa Daisy
Rudbeckia hirta 'Prairie Sun'
Half Hardy Annual

ABC Wednesday R is for Rudbeckia

ABC Wednesday R is for Rudbeckia

If you are her for Wordless Wednesday scroll down to the next post.

Here it is Wednesday again. I had a lot of choices for this week’s letter but decided to go with genus Rudbeckia, one of the several genera referred to commonly as Coneflowers. These are great plants for the garden as they are tough, free flowering and mostly reliable perennials. I am never sure how to phrase something like ‘mostly perennial’ because with just about anything in the botanical world there are a few exceptions. A couple of the 25 species are annuals and a couple are biennial. For the most part the Black Eyed Susan (R. hirta) are perennials. I started off with 125 plants in the Estate Garden and have multiplied that to a couple thousand by encouraging seeding and using divisions to propagate them. This year was the first year the deer completely ate the tops of my whole crop. The plants started to flower and in about a week I was gone they stripped everything. I had to laugh when I saw on a gardening website that the deer don’t like them. They seem to eat them with abandon in certain situations. Lucky I was able to get this picture before the massacre. There were a couple of other older posts on Rudbeckia, use the search if you are interested.

One of the 25 species of Rudbeckia, Three-lobed Coneflower (R. triloba)

These flowers really add a lot to the late summer garden and look great planted in masses. I have always grown mine in full sun but read that they can take part shade. They like moist soil but can grow in just about any conditions. For a little extra pizzazz check out some of the new cultivars.

Here are some interesting (I get mostly plain yellow) seedlings I have gotten from my unsupervised crosses:





I really wanted to use Rose for ‘R’ but since there were over 70 (that’s where I stopped counting) different roses posted on this blog this year I thought that was enough. It is almost time to beput the roses to bed for the year now. The preparations in the different gardens range from elaborate to almost nothing. I am so far behind at work it isn’t funny. The 2 people I have working are leaving for Mexico on Saturday. One is not returning and the other says he will be back but his work permit is expiring so we will have to see what happens.


Here is a list of other ‘ABC Wednesday’ Blogs:

mrs nesbitts place
hin's photoblog
tech the man
a bit of this a dash of that
Little Rock Daily Photo
photoxication
Kissing the Dogwood
strolling through Georgia
Ruth's Garden Blog
kate isis
photography by kml
AVCR8TEUR'S Blog
Salty Dogs
The Modern Goddess
Simply Sage
author blog
kai
Mollitudes
ten forty
Neva
Ackworth born, gone West
Secluded Habitat
katch photo
Mr. Mapper
The Max Files
Oswegan
Watch me, No Watch me
Peter Miller
Lynette