Each spring, I look with admiration on my drifts of an Ontario native plant that asks so little of me, but gives so much in return: Polygonatum biflorum, smooth Solomon’s seal. Its tapered shoots emerge in April in my north-facing back garden, where the clumps under the black walnut tree that looms over my sideyard pathway are surrounded by the tiny flowers of the bulbous spring ephemeral Corydalis solida.
By mid-late May, looking back towards my garden gate, the corydalis has disappeared but the Solomon’s seals stand three feet tall.
It’s still early in the garden when they flower, the grasses in my deck pots still just inches high.
The colony in the back corner of the garden grows near a Tiger Eyes sumac and has as its neighbour fall monkshood (Aconitum carmichaelii ‘Arendsii’), not yet visible. Both enjoy the same shade-dappled, slightly moist, humus-rich soil.
It’s a testament to the travelling power of Solomon’s seals that they do sometimes subsume other plants. This ‘Ballade’ lily tulip – one of my favourites – is resisting.
But nothing keeps Allium hollandicum ‘Purple Sensation’ from rearing its pretty head.
My garden features a number of invasive plants – some native, like ostrich fern (Matteucia struthiopteris), others enthusiastic exotics, like my lily-of-the-valley, aka ‘guerilla of the valley’ (Convallaria majalis). (I’ve written about that pest before in my blog about making a perfumed garden party hat!) But Solomon’s seal is up to the challenge and can stand its ground.
One that didn’t fare so well in competition with the Solomon’s seals was wild geranium (G. maculatum), shown below in a photo from a previous spring.
At the Toronto Botanical Garden, blue Amsonia tabernaemontana, shown in the background below, makes a pretty companion for Solomon’s seal.
I love the way the pearl-drop flower buds of smooth Solomon’s seal open, curling up their green tips like dainty skirts.
In November, the leaves turn yellow-gold.
Solomon’s seal and other woodland lovers were featured in ‘Shady Lady’, one of #Janetsfairycrowns from 2021, which I blogged about last year.
My next-door neighbour grows smooth Solomon’s seal as well; it met with the approval of the resident male cardinal.
Finally, speaking of cardinals, here’s a tiny video made in my garden featuring smooth Solomon’s seal with my regular choristers, cardinals and robins.
For gardeners who lament the end of the flowering season in colder regions, my 25th fairy crown offers a reminder that there are perennials that offer bloom for the border – as well as the bees – well into October. But I will admit to a tiny bit of trepidation as I placed it ever so gently on my silvery locks. That’s because the indigo-purple flower is monkshood: one of the most toxic plants in gardening – and also one of my very favourite perennials. Meet Aconitum carmichaelii ‘Arendsii’, aka autumn monkshood. (More on the toxicity later.) The white flowers are autumn snakeroot or bugbane, Actaea simplex (formerly Cimicifuga). The violet-purple daisy flowers are ‘Hella Lacy’ New England asters (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae). And the leaves against my cheek are fall-coloured Tiger Eyes cutleaf staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina ‘Bailtiger’).
There’s a corner of my back garden where three of these plants grow together. I think they have done well there because it’s the lowest part of my garden – just by inches, but that means that table water goes there naturally. Also, it’s the right amount of light for them, being somewhat shaded by the cedar hedge and surrounding trees. But I do give the monkshood supplemental water when I’m around. And I realized that other monkshood stands in my garden have suffered in the summer months when I’m at the cottage since they’re not drought-proof by any means. They also like rich soil and (note to self) are overdue for a good feeding of compost in the spring.
I happen to be very fond of blue and white used together in the garden (and have a large photo library devoted dozens of excellent examples of the combination), so this particular autumn pairing pleases me very much.
In some light, autumn monkshood looks deep indigo-blue; in others, there’s a purplish sheen. Years ago, when I realized how much I loved this perennial, I got busy dividing my first plants and moving the clumps around in spring. Take care to use thick gloves if you do this, especially if you have open cuts or scratches, because the tabloid stories of “murder by monkshood” are a little startling, though actual living monkshood plants are not usually to blame. In Toronto this summer, twelve people were hospitalized after eating at a Chinese restaurant because a spice was accidentally contaminated with an aconite powder from a different species used in traditional Chinese medicine. Still, if you have dogs that like to eat garden plants or young children who might be tempted, you might want to skip my favourite perennial! (For everything you could possibly want to know about monkshood toxicity, read this article by the American Association for Clinical Chemistry.)
It’s obvious how Aconitum species got their common name, for the upper sepals of the flowers do resemble the hooded cloaks of medieval monks. I love those black stamens tipped with white pollen and often see honey bees and bumble bees foraging in them too. ‘Arendsii’ is a hybrid cultivar developed originally by German nurseryman Georg Arends (1863-1952) at his nursery near Cologne. Around 1945, he crossed A. carmichaelii and A. carmichaelii var. wilsonii to produce the plant. Owing to its variability, the cultivar is sometimes called the “Arendsii Group”.
Monkshood’s colour appeals to me, obviously!
Because autumn monkshood generally blooms between Canadian Thanksgiving (second Monday in October) and Remembrance Day in November, the plants can be hit by an occasional early snow…..
…. heavy enough to take the flower-laden stems to the ground.
Autumn snakeroot (Actaea simplex), by contrast, isn’t known to commit murder but the genus does have some toxic species, so don’t eat it! Related and similar-looking to the summer-blooming Ontario native snakeroot, Actaea racemosa, it hails from northern Russia, western China, Manchuria, Mongolia, Korea and Japan. It has a delightful fragrance that reminds me of incense. (I’ve written previously about this one in White Flowers for Sweet Perfume.) Oh, and that big, reddish shrub in the background is native alternate-leaved dogwood (Cornus alternifolia).
On a warm, sunny October day, the spike inflorescences are alive with all kinds of bees and flies, including bumble bees.
I do love Tiger Eyes® cutleaf staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina ‘Bailtiger’) in all seasons, though it is not without its drawbacks. Like the regular native species, parts of it seem to die off each summer. As well, its rhizomes travel a long distance – in my garden, right under a patio to pop up perkily beside my pond. I’ve dug up and re-planted some of these seedlings, being careful to cut the rhizome first and give the new plant time to heal and form feeder roots. But nowhere is the plant as happy as in its original corner, in rich, moisture-retentive soil. It has bright chartreuse foliage in spring and early summer and the fuzzy red fruits feed the resident cardinals and robins throughout winter. But it’s that brilliant apricot-orange foliage that is impressive right now.
Another fall favourite in my back garden is Molinia arundinacea ‘Skyracer’. When it flings those flowering stems out like a bouquet, then turns bright-gold, it’s a sight to see.
Here’s my autumn kitchen view into the back garden right now, over the lower-deck pots with their tough-as-nails sideoats grama (Bouteloua curtipendula). There’s a mellow quality about October that is such a relief, after the jungle growth and heat of summer.
In my front garden there’s a small stand of New England aster (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae). This one is the cultivar ‘Hella Lacy’—and I wish I could say it is as spectacular as Hella’s husband, the late garden writer Allen Lacy, described it in his 1990 book The Garden in Autumn. He found it growing in a few neighborhood gardens near his New Jersey home in 1972. “When I first clapped eyes on it in a front yard just down the block, I knew it was classy. This aster is very sturdy, requiring no staking, although it grows up to four feet high and the same distance across. It bears enormous numbers of large, single, purple flowers, each with a bright golden eye when it first opens. For the two weeks that it stays in bloom… it is the handsomest plant in town, not only for its intensity of color but also for the great number of Monarch butterflies hovering over it…” As you can see, there are bees enjoying my Hella Lacy flowers: a green Agapostemon virescens, a honey bee and the common Eastern bumble bee. In fact, by early October most Monarchs have departed Toronto for Mexico. Also, my Hella Lacy is unirrigated, i.e. watered in summer only when it rains, and since all New England asters thrive in rich, moist soil (you often see wild plants flanking roadside ditches), it is likely not as beautiful as those Allen saw and named for his wife. Nevertheless, it is a highlight of my garden in mid-late October.
Native Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) is colouring in my garden now as well. Though it’s not as uniformly red as some vines I’ve seen growing in full sun, it does form fruit which the birds love.
Last autumn, I looked out my kitchen window and saw a pair of Northern flickers snacking on the fruit. It was such fun to see the yellow on the male’s tail feathers – before it was chased away by a red squirrel.
Finally, here’s a little bouquet to mark Fairy Crown #25 and the last flowers in my garden. But it’s not the end of the crowns, not quite yet. Stay tuned…
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Want to catch up with my blogs on the earlier fairy crowns? Here they are:
My 22nd fairy crown is a celebration of the ornamental grasses I grow at the cottage on Lake Muskoka. The little seeds are from switch grass (Panicum virgatum); my “bangs” are big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii); and there’s also some pollen-laden Indian grass (Sorghastrum nutans) there as well. The pale lavender flowers are a little aster that grows wild on our property, sky-blue aster (Symphyotrichum oolentangiense). The pink flowers are the New England aster ‘Harrington’s Pink’ (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae).
In fact, #22 was the most unruly of all my crowns to make, given that the grasses had long flowering spikes that were difficult to attach to the wire frame. Here’s a little inside look at the nuts-and-bolts of fairy crown creation.
Many of my prairie grasses grow in the west meadow. In the photo below, you can see big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii) mixed with heliopsis, lanceleaf aster and various goldenrods.
When native switch grass (Panicum virgatum) is in flower and the sun shines behind it, it adds a beautiful sense of lightness to the meadow. I planted a few nursery pots of various cultivars of switch grass in the naturalistic garden beds on the property, but I also sowed seed of the species throughout the meadows and it is gradually filling in in many places….
….. including the lake shore.
It has a swishing, kinetic quality that makes sitting beside it in late summer a sensory experience.
And in autumn, switch grass turns colour, with some taking on red hues and others golden-yellow.
Big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii) is sometimes called turkeyfoot grass because the flower spikes branch into three segments that resemble a turkey’s foot. It is native to southern Ontario.
By the time it blooms in early September alongside big bluestem, grey-headed coneflower (Ratibida pinnata) is usually showing off its oblong black seedheads.
Indian grass (Sorghastrum nutans) is a stealth grass; one minute it’s in a tidy clump in a garden bed, the next minute it’s popping up in cracks between flagstones. But it’s one of the native grasses I’ve encouraged to grow in the shallow, sandy soil of the west meadow. I assume its deep, searching roots find cracks in the Precambrian bedrock that somehow approximate the deep soil of the tallgrass prairie that once covered millions and millions of acres of North America. That little aster peeking out from the Indian grass is sky-blue aster (Symphyotrichum oolentangiense).
I see it all over the countryside in Muskoka, but I adore the way it pops up amidst native species that I sowed in the meadows here, like wild beebalm (Monarda fistulosa), below, showing its late summer seedheads.
It’s one of those plants that is unassumingly charming – and new plants emerge in different spots each September.
But bees are sure to find it, including the orange-belted bumble bee (Bombus ternarius), below.
In my east meadow, September features another plant I received from the gardeners at Toronto’s Spadina House Museum – only this time, I purchased at their plant sale (unlike my cup plants, which were gifted to me by Spadina’s gardeners with a warning about their rambling ways.) Meet Symphyotrichum novae-angliae ‘Harrington’s Pink’, below, partnering with sweet blackeyed susan (Rudbeckia subtomentosa).
Bumble bees are fond of ‘Harrington’s Pink’…. even if the flowers sometimes don’t fully open in my dry meadows and tend to look a little wonky…..
….. unlike the spectacular display this plant makes at Spadina House in early autumn, along with other cultivars of New England aster.
The goldenrod in my crown is not one you see in nurseries; in fact, it took me a while to identify it, but I think I have. It is hairy goldenrod (Solidago hispida), native to dry, rocky places in a large swath of the northeast.
I’ll leave you with a bouquet I made many years ago that celebrates the big grasses, asters, seedheads and goldenrods that shine in my meadows at this time of year. The cowboy boot? Well, it just seemed fitting for this celebration of the prairie on Lake Muskoka!
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Here are the blogs on my previous 21 fairy crowns!
My 20th crown for August 19th had a sweet scent that was meant for the bees, not me, but I did appreciate the soft, vanilla perfume of the dusty-pink, hollow Joe Pye weed (Eutrochium fistulosum) that grows in the parts of my meadow that retain a little moisture. Along with it are the violet-purple flowers of New York ironweed (Vernonia noveboracensis); the big, yellow daisies of cup plant (Silphium perfoliatum); the small yellow blossoms of grass-leaved goldenrod (Euthamia graminifolia); and a few sprigs of rough goldenrod (Solidago rugosa).
The plants I gathered came mostly from my west meadow…..
….. where the New York ironweed and Joe Pye weed make excellent companions, appreciating the tiny extra bit of moisture at the midpoint of our sloping property and maturing at about the same height, 2-3 m (6-9 ft), depending on the season.
I think I bought my first plant at a nursery, but New York ironweed has popped up on our property in soil that was brought in from neighbouring woodlands. Provided it can maintain fairly damp feet, it is happy in our sandy conditions.
Bees adore it, as do butterflies like the great spangled fritillary, below….
….. and the ruby-throated hummingbird is a fan, too.
One of my favourite photos was of a female goldenrod crab spider disguised as an ironweed stamen, just awaiting her unwary prey.
The hollow Joe Pye weed attracts lots of bumble bees. It’s much paler than its spotted (E. maculatum) cousin.
Grass-leaved or flat-topped goldenrod is not a true goldenrod in the Solidago genus, though it was considered part of the gang until recently. It is one of the late summer “weeds” on our property, including near our Waterloo Biofilter septic structure, below, where it definitely emitted a light floral perfume (that was not that of the septic system).
Bumble bees, such as the red-belted bumble bee (Bombus ternarius) below, and other bees seem to love it during its rather short blooming period.
Another abundant goldenrod that occurs naturally on our property is rough goldenrod (Solidago rugosa). Better behaved than its cousin, Canada goldenrod, it is nonetheless proficient at spreading itself around, much to the delight of all kinds of bees. This species gave rise to the popular garden cultivar ‘Fireworks’.
Finally, a few words about one of the tallest plants in my meadows, cup plant (Silphium perfoliatum). I was given my first tuberous roots of this northeast native by the gardeners at Toronto’s Spadina House Museum, with a warning that it would be invasive and I might be sorry I planted it. Fortunately, my meadows are filled with invasives and they all like to duke it out, so for the most part cup plant has been kept in check. Here it is at the base of our stairs.
My meadows are dry and sandy which also works against its invasive tendencies. But I saw it on a riverbank at the Chicago Botanic Garden, below, and I can say that it would be much more aggressive in the moist soil that it craves.
It’s a great favourite of bumble bees…..
….. and, occasionally, of passing butterflies.
I’ve made up a little video on my cottage cup plants, with a humorously surprising last scene;
Finally, here’s a little August bouquet from my meadows to you… until the next fairy crown.
Let’s stick with Sir Van Morrison in this, the ninth blog of #mysongscapes. The year before he recorded ‘Astral Weeks’ with ‘Madame George’, my favourite song and the subject of my last blog, he had a smash hit with the pop-infused ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ of 1967. As usual with Van, however, the song’s meaning was confusing. He originally wrote it, he has said, with a calypso flavour as ‘Brown Skinned Girl’… “kind of a Jamican song”.. but changed the words to make it more radio-friendly. The lyrics were racy for the time (even though 1967 was the hippie-flavoured summer of love). “Making love in the green grass/behind the stadium with you/My brown-eyed girl” didn’t make it past the censors for a lot of radio stations, who substituted different chorus lyrics when they played it. But it’s still the song that gets entire tables of women of all ages up dancing when it’s played by the deejay at that wedding reception. Because who doesn’t want to be Van Morrison’s “Brown-Eyed Girl”?
BROWN EYED GIRL
Hey, where did we go? Days when the rains came Down in the hollow Playin’ a new game Laughing and a running hey, hey Skipping and a jumping In the misty morning fog with Our hearts a thumpin’ and you My brown-eyed girl You, my brown-eyed girl
Whatever happened To Tuesday and so slow? Going down the old mine With a transistor radio Standing in the sunlight laughing Hiding behind a rainbow’s wall Slipping and sliding All along the waterfall, with you My brown-eyed girl You, my brown-eyed girl
Do you remember when we used to sing Sha la la la la la la la la la la te da Just like that Sha la la la la la la la la la la te da, la te da
So hard to find my way Now that I’m all on my own I saw you just the other day My, how you have grown Cast my memory back there, Lord Sometimes I’m overcome thinking ’bout Making love in the green grass Behind the stadium with you My brown-eyed girl You, my brown-eyed girl
Do you remember when we used to sing Sha la la la la la la la la la la te da Sha la la la la la la la la la la te da, la te da (Bit by bit, by bit, by bit, by bit, by bit) (Sha la la la la la la, la te da, la te da Sha la la la la la la la la la la te da, la te da (La te da, da da da da da da da da)
********* My Brown-Eyed Girls
Okay… you knew where this was going, didn’t you? Yes, I do love my rudbeckias, whether they’re called black-eyed susans or blackeyed Susans or brown-eyed suzies or coneflowers.. whatever. In fact, at our cottage they were once the only flower I grew. Seriously. In 2002, when we were trying to keep the freshly delivered soil from sliding down the hillside at our newly-built cottage on Lake Muskoka north of Toronto, I mixed a few ounces of the tiny seeds of the native Rudbeckia hirta or wild black-eyed susan, into a sack of red fescue (Festuca rubra) seed and raked it in. Because this species is biennial, that first summer the little rosettes of foliage formed. But the following year, they flowered in golden profusion and my hillside looked magical.
Every time I walked down my stairs, it was into a sea of black-eyed susans.
I spent a lot of time crouched down photographing them.
That summer of 2003 was so magical (and I knew it was once-in-a-lifetime) so I did some impressionist stuff like this….
…. and this….
…. and this butterfly. And the following year I had a photography show to celebrate my “black-eyed susan summer”.
I asked my 92-year-old mother-in-law (then still living down the lake shore from us) to hold a little bunch of them in her hands. Ten years later, it became the final image in the slide show at her funeral service.
The black-eyed susans attracted lots of pollinators to the true flowers, the little yellow specks you can hardly see arrayed around the brown eye or cone.
Rudbeckia hirta’s botanical name means “hairy”, and you can see the hairs on the sepals and involucre, below. They also line the stem and leaves.
With so many thousands of black-eyed susans in my meadows, it was fascinating to explore them carefully. Doing so allowed me to see that nature often makes mistakes, like this mutant double flower.
And I was fascinated with the difference in size and vigor between plants grown from seed I had sown in rich, moist soil and those I’d sprinkled in dusty, dry soil near the roots of white pine trees. This phenomenon is not part of the evolutionary journey of the species, but is the result of “phenotypic plasticity”, i.e. the ability of a species to adapt to conditions without any mutational change in its genetic makeup.
As the years passed, the black-eyed susans became just part of the cast of characters in my cottage flora. They looked lovely with butterfly milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa) and pink musk mallow (Malva moschata) …..
….. and hoary vervain (Verbena stricta)……
….. and peeking around the big, fragrant blossoms of the Orienpet lily Lilium ‘Conca d’Or’.
Rudbeckias are part of the massive Asteraceae family of composite species evolved to offer compound inflorescences composed of colourful, insect-attracting ray petals and masses of tiny “true” flowers. In my meadows I grow several of these yellow composite “daisy” flowers, including Rudbeckia hirta and Rudbeckia subtomentosa as well as Heliopsis,Silphium and Ratibida species. Not shown in the tapestry below are Coreopsis and Anthemis, also in my meadows.
For late summer, I love sweet blackeyed susan (Rudbeckia subtomentosa). This species gets its name from the subtle fragrance of the flowers that appear in clusters atop tall stems. Its newly-emerging central cone is truly brown, unlike the very dark cone of Rudbeckia hirta. Later it turns black.
In my meadows, it flowers at the same time as New York ironweed (Vernonia noveboracensis), below and also Joe Pye weed (Eutrochium maculatum).
Throughout summer I gather blackeyed susans for bouquets. One year, I photographed a vase in my meadow filled with what was in bloom there in mid-July. Apart from Rudbeckia hirta, there’s pink Monarda fistulosa, lilac Veronicastrum virginicum ‘Fascination’, orange Asclepias tuberosa and yellow Heliopsis helianthoides and Coreopsis lanceolata.
One rainy August day, I lined up some vintage apothecary bottles filled with what I found in bloom or fruit. Black-eyed susans were just a small part of that lovely abundance.
By September, the meadow has fewer species in flower but in the tiny bouquets below, sweet black-eyed susans (Rudbeckia subtomentosa) looked lovely with long-flowering Heliopsis helianthoides, ‘Gold Plate’ yarrow (Achillea filipendulina), goldenrod (Solidago rugosa) and the native asters, including lavender Symphyotrichum azureum, purple New England aster (Symphyotrichum nova-angliae) and white lance-leaved aster (Symphyotrichum lanceolatum).
Another year, I combined Canada goldenrod with New York ironweed and sweet black-eyed susans for a September bouquet. These all tablets, soft tablets, jellies have short amerikabulteni.com generico cialis on line response time as well as long-lasting results. Alcohol related deaths a potential hazard According to reports sildenafil in usa there are approximately 2.3 million years of potential life lost in the United States owing to alcoholism. Treating ED and expanding cialis free samples the period of time. More to You: It is quite natural that you get anxious during you first sexual act, but if you facing this problem every time then this is a time when he should act better than investing time in mere thinking about what’s going wrong? There are no versions, generic or otherwise available for tadalafil in canada .
In my front yard pollinator garden in Toronto, I use the ubiquitous, award-winning perennial black-eyed susan Rudbeckia fulgida var. sullivantii ‘Goldsturm’. It likes to seize ground so I occasionally pull it out when it wants to invade its less aggressive neighbours…..
…. but I like the rich gold as an easy, long-flowering filler plant with the pinks, blues and purples of echinacea, perovskia, liatris and sedum.
Here it is with late-blooming rough blazing star (Liatris aspera).
‘Goldsturm’ black-eyed susan is a mainstay in my friend Marnie Wright’s beautiful Bracebridge, Ontario garden, along with summer phlox and hydrangeas. (Have a look at this blog I wrote about Marnie’s garden.)
When I travel, I take note of different black-eyed susans used effectively in designs. This is sweet black-eyed susan (R. subtomentosa) in an exuberant display on New York’s High Line.
…. and here with a cloud of white mountain mint (Pycnanthemum tenuifolium) and orange butterfly milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa).
Here it is with purple dense blazing star (Liatris spicata) at the front, tall vervain (Verbena hastata) in the middle and gray-headed coneflower (Ratibida pinnata) at right.
Native grasses can be good partners for black-eyed susans. At the Toronto Botanical Garden (TBG), I photographed Rudbeckia fulgida var. sullivantii ‘Goldsturm’ with little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium).
But the TBG has lots of gardens and here we see Joe Pye weed (Eutrochium maculatum ‘Gateway’) partnering with ‘Goldsturm’.
Another summer, I photographed ‘Goldsturm’ with tall, pale-yellow Helianthus ‘Lemon Queen’ behind it and smoke bush (Cotinus coggygria ‘Purpurea’) beside it. The spike seedheads are from ligularia.
Another late-summer perennial at the TBG is great blue lobelia (L. siphilitica), which looks beautiful with R. ‘Goldsturm’.
The TBG also uses a quill-petalled cultivar of Rudbeckia subtomentosa called ‘Henry Eilers’, combining it nicely with rattlesnake master (Eryngium yuccifolium).
I adored this lighter-than-air combination of R subtomentosa ‘Henry Eilers’ matched up perfectly with the dark bottlebrush flowers of Japanese burnet (Sanguisorba tenuifolia ‘Purpurea’).
But the best design I saw using ‘Henry Eilers’ was at Terra Nova Nurseries in Oregon, where it was combined with the snakeroot Actaea simplex ‘Black Negligee’, its dark foliage accenting those dark cones perfectly.
Breeders continue to work with black-eyed susans, especially at Chicago Botanic Gardens where numerous taxa are assessed in the Bernice E. Lavin Plant Evaluation Garden, below.
There are other species of Rudbeckia native to North America that are often seen in gardens. This is brown-eyed susan (Rudbeckia triloba), below, a short-lived perennial which is often described as weedy or invasive, but its small flowers can be a good addition to a rich, moist meadow.
Rudbeckia nitida or shiny coneflower is tall with reflexed yellow petals, prominent greenish cones. The cultivar ‘Herbstsonne’ is the one most often available (though some experts believe this cultivar is actually a hybrid between R. nitida and R. laciniata).
Rudbeckia laciniata or cutleaf coneflower is usually seen in its old-fashioned double forms, ‘Hortensia’, below, or ‘Goldquelle’.
Among the showiest black-eyed susans are the gloriosa daisies, which are tetraploid versions of Rudbeckia hirta. That means they have twice the normal chromosomes, a condition created by treating them with colchicine (from autumn crocuses) or radiation. Tetraploidy results in larger flowers than normal, and the condition persists in seedlings so gloriosa daisies come true from seed. Like regular R. hirta, gloriosa daisies are usually biennial, but may flower the same year if seeds are sown indoors in winter. Gloriosa daisies exhibit myriad colours or streaks of colour. Or they might have doubled petals.
At the Montreal Botanical Garden (MBG) one summer, I photographed a delightful meadow of gloriosa daisies – a wonderful variety of cultivars mixed with blue cornflowers (Centaurea cyanus) and orange cosmos (C. sulphureus).
Along the central strip in MBG’s magnificent perennial garden, they had planted rainbow chard with the dwarf gloriosa daisy ‘Toto’ and a curly carex edging.
At the Royal Botanical Garden in Burlington, Ontario, I liked seeing native bottlebrush grass (Elymus hystrix) interplanted with gloriosa daisies.
I’ll finish my Van Morrison-inspired musings with a few gloriosa beauties. This is ‘Autumn Colors’ (which is a very variable cultivar)…..
…. and ‘Denver Daisy’….
…. and ‘Cherry Brandy’…..
….. and ‘Irish Eyes’ with its lovely green cone.
Speaking of Irish eyes, mine happen to be green. The genetics of eye colour is incredibly complex, but depends on alleles in your parents’ genome and the concentration of melanin in the iris.
I am the only one in my family of six to have green eyes – my parents both had blue eyes, and my children all have blue or greyish-blue eyes. If I wanted to be Van Morrison’s brown-eyed girl – laughing and a running hey hey/skipping and a jumping – I’d have to buy tinted contact lenses, something that makeup artists frequently use in film. I didn’t want to go that far, but I do have Photoshop. What do you think?
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This is the ninth blog in #mysongscapes series of winter 2020 that combine music I love with my photography. If you enjoyed reading, have a look at the others beginning with
