Sneezeweeds

Showy goldenrod has rounded flower heads, while fireworks splays outward like plumes of fireworks exploding in the autumn sky.

Hellenium is a gorgeous late-blooming perennial in shades of red, orange, and gold.

New England aster and its hybrid form, purple dome aster, are classic fall perennials with purple and yellow blooms.

These may bloom all the way until Thanksgiving if temperatures remain warm enough.

Helianthum.

Helianthum.Heleniums are lovely.

They're lovely star-shaped golden flowers.

Mm.

But sunflowers, number two, huge on the list.

Now, number three is actually one that we treat as a cool flower, but it blooms late summer and into fall, and that is Helenium.

Helenium is known to be a perennial in some areas, but it is not a long-lived perennial.

Um, for us, as commercial growers, for labor, um, space planning and everything else, when I would plant a perennial, we're looking at long life, five years, three to five years, um, and we don't get that here in the South typically with Heleniums.

So we love Helenium.

What do we do? We treat it like a cold, cool season hardy annual, a cool flower.

So we fall plant Helenium, and even though it was planted last fall, it is just now starting to bloom.

I'm just cutting my first blooms.

No, sorry, Helium.

Hellenium, sorry.

But that's not Black Eyed Susie.

No, it's Rebecca.

Boy, you're really confusing your dad right now.

But I'm not the one that said Hellenium.

I know, but I finally got it right, didn't I? And we'll call that the Latin Alert.

But the point is that there are many out there that you don't necessarily... that aren't necessarily wind-pollinated that you could absolutely do and just let go.

The flowers have raised centers, wedge-shaped yellow petals, uh, which end in three teeth, and bloom July through August.

Sneezeweed requires a damp site, native to a large part of the United States, but naturalized in New England.

It does attract butterflies.

Um, as the species name implies, the flower, it flowers in late summer, fall.