Orange coneflower

The original black-eyed Susan - a bristly-stemmed, short-lived meadow daisy that behaves as an annual, biennial, or brief perennial depending on where it grows. It blooms hard and early from seed, then carries itself forward by reseeding rather than by spreading into a permanent clump.

A native upright perennial with fragrant midsummer flower panicles in pink, white, lavender, or red - a classic border anchor and hummingbird-friendly choice for sunny beds.

Largeflower tickseed is sold as a perennial and behaves like one for about two years. Missouri Botanical Garden says plainly that the plants are somewhat short-lived and that self-seeding is what perpetuates a good planting; the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center is blunter still, recording that it is not reliably perennial and self-sows readily, becoming weedy. Those are two descriptions of the same plant, and believing them is the whole difference between a stand that lasts and an expensive annual. What you are buying is a seed-perpetuated colony rather than a long-lived clump: the original crowns thin out after two or three seasons and volunteers carry the planting on, which means it survives only where there is bare soil to germinate in and where some flowers are allowed to set seed. Deadhead every head, every year, and the colony ends when the crowns do. The flowers are the largest of the common yellow tickseeds, 2 to 3 inches across, deep yellow rays notched at the tips around a darker golden disc, held one to a stem on slender erect stalks to about 24 inches. What it wants is the opposite of border hospitality: poor sandy or rocky soil with sharp drainage, full sun, and no irrigation. Missouri Botanical Garden records it as tolerant of heat, humidity and drought and names crown rot in moist, poorly drained soil as the way it dies, so the reliable method of killing it is kindness. Within this catalog it sits between plains coreopsis (Coreopsis tinctoria), a true annual that never pretends otherwise, and lanceleaf coreopsis (Coreopsis lanceolata), the other short-lived perennial and the plant it is most often mislabelled as. The leaves settle it: lanceleaf carries narrow, hairy, unlobed lance-shaped leaves gathered in a basal tuft, while largeflower has lobeless linear leaves at the base and pinnatifid, deeply lobed upper leaves cut into linear segments up the stem.

A drought-tolerant native perennial of the central and eastern United States with long summer bloom, strong pollinator value, and winter seedheads for birds.

A fragrant native perennial with red summer flowers that draw hummingbirds, bees, and butterflies.

A clump-forming aromatic native perennial of eastern North America, grown as much for its silvery floral bracts as its bloom - the upper leaves below each flower head turn a frosted, dusty-mint color in summer. Dense flat-topped clusters of tiny two-lipped pinkish-white flowers cover the plant from mid to late summer and are a magnet for bees and butterflies. Unlike the true mints (Mentha), it spreads only modestly by rhizome and is not invasive.

A pollinator-supporting palette of eastern North American natives with broad hardiness ranges and wide native distributions. Built for gardeners who want a planting that can handle warming zones without giving up wildlife value.

A durable sunny border with summer bloom, seedheads, and upright winter texture.