Rudbeckia hirta
Black-eyed Susan is a native garden ornamental that is easily recognizable. You can’t help but smile when you see a batch of the bright yellow daisy-like flowers with the beautiful brown centers bobbing in the breeze.
These biennial wildflowers easily reseed, and are best suited to areas of disturbance where you want a short lived perennial that will fill in while waiting for some of the long-term plants to establish. Ideal for a cutting garden, these flowers hold their bloom longer if given afternoon shade but are able to tolerate everything except wet soils, as well as being heat and drought tolerant.
Rudbeckia hirta serves as a larval host plant for the Silvery Checkerspot, as well as 14 other Lepidoptera, including the super cool looking Wavy-Lined Emerald Camoflaged Looper.
Source: grown from seed originally from Minnesota. Prairie Moon Nursery.
Photo 3 courtesy of Dan Wilder
Rudbeckia hirta (Black-eyed Susan)
details
SIZE AND POT INFORMATION: More details coming in May
type: biennial/short lived perennial (self sows) sun needs: full sun, part sun/part shade water needs: dry, average, moist height: 2' plant spacing: 1/sq ft bloom time: June, July, August, September, October bloom color: yellow good plant companions
purple coneflower, New England aster, butterflyweed, bee balm, Culver's root, obedient plant, wood lily
special notes
salt tolerant. Some salt exposure should not be fatal to the plant but some leaf burning may still occur. deer resistant (please note that does not mean deer proof)