It’s Black Eyed Susan Time
For those of you who don’t know the name of the great yellow daisy-like flower with the black center blooming in everyone’s gardens right now, well it’s Rudbeckia daisy, better known as a Black-Eyed Susan. It’s a great July-August bloomer but if you keep cutting the dead flowers, you’ll have flowers into September.
Now my friends and I wonder, how did the name come about? We can only imagine.
I hope it was no freeloadin’, fist-wavin’ husband that decided that his wife, who happened to be named Susan, was spending just a little too much time in the flower garden and so he decided to give her a big shiner. All the flowers that she tended happened to be Rudbeckia Daisies. When her friends found out about the altercation, they called her Black-Eyed Susan. Since they really didn’t know the name of the flower, nor did they care since the gossip surrounding it was so much more juicy, every time they saw the plant they called it Black-Eyed Susan. Obviously. because it reminded them of Susan and her shiner. We hope there was a happy ending to this tale though, and that when she got up, well, we can only imagine how sorry he was…
Okay, we really don’t know but that’s the best we can come up with. If you have a better idea, moi and my readers would love to hear about it. Please tell us.
Before you do that, though, I wanted to spend a little time on this gorgeous, hardy plant. It’s more than folklore, it’s a wonderful perennial. One of the varieties, Rudbeckia fulgida ‘Goldsturm’ was selected by the Perennial Plant Association to be the 1999 Perennial Plant of the Year. There is some serious competition for that top spot every year!
These plants are long-blooming, clumping flowers that spread by dropping their seed and by underground stolons. The plant is not invasive but does spread. It’s low maintenance. Will take full sun to part-shade. It grows best in well-drained, consistently moist soil, but will also tolerate clay soils and mild droughts. Leave the last flowers’ seed heads on for great winter interest.
These plants are also great in containers and make absolutely great cut flowers to bring inside to become a stand-alone bouquet or to mix with other great cutting flowers, such as cosmos, zinnias and the like.
And so there you have it. Don’t have any of your own plants? Take a ride or walk and enjoy someone else’s AND please tell us your thoughts on how the Black-Eyed Susan got it’s name.
