Rudbeckia Species, Greenhead Coneflower, Cutleaf Coneflower, Wild Goldenglow, Sochan

This plant is easily grown from stratified seed, and blooms well in the second year. It gets visited by various native bees and butterfli...Read Morees throughout the day, and is tolerant of a variety of soil conditions. I have it planted in a shady area (only about one hour of sun a day) in clay soil that experiences a mix of wet and dry periods throughout the seasons. It does fine there. Because of its height, the stems can be a bit flimsy and prone to bending, so plant in a protected area. My plants are topping out at around 73 inches but this is only their second year from seed. The plant is also a good host for sawfly caterpillars, which helps support local bird populations.

A good-looking native perennial that I have seen wild in a few spots in se Pennsylvania in colonies and also planted as colonies at land ...Read Morepreserves to showcase native plants. It gets very tall and can lean over, so it needs room and is best as a group. Good for pollinators. Like with other tall perennials, in a garden one can cut it way back in spring to keep it shorter and more stocky.

This is a vigorous tall plant, often taller than I am (at 5 feet 11 inches) It have suprising shade tolerant but prefer part shade at wo...Read Moreodland edge. It blooms rather heavily, even when you cut it back. It is one of the last flowers to bloom, just before some variety of asters. It multiply like crazy, but I have not seen any seedlings. It have a tight group of basal leaves then suddenly send up stems sparely laced with leaves up to six to eight feet before blooming. May dislike dry soil. Bees seem to loves it, but so does a kind of aphid that often infects asters and other coneflowers. The aphids is bold red in color and there seem to be no predators willing to eat them. Often my hands are stained red after crushing them!

This is not a plant that I would move into the perennial bed -- it's quite tall, and the blossoms are more acid-yellow than I like for bl...Read Moreending. However, for the edges of the woods, they are nice -- before they bloom, the foliage isn't really gangly as you might expect, and the blossoms are plentiful and small in relation to the plant's height. Mine were a gift from another MG, and I'm hoping they multiply quickly (as they are said to reseed readily) -- I could use 50 more!!