Are you after a tough-as-nails flowering perennial that’s in it for the long haul? Well, let me introduce you to the Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta). I’ve been growing it in my Birmingham, Alabama, yard for nearly a decade. I bought one potted plant, which has become well over a hundred (to be honest, I haven’t counted, but it’s a lot.)
It’s native here and in many other places in North America—its range covers the Eastern and Central United States, stretching west to New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, and North Dakota and north into Canada. Even in the lower 48 where it’s not native, it grows.
At my house, it grows in a bed along the front of my house that bakes in the summer sun, but it also thrives in the dappled shade, moist soil, and natural leaf-mulch of my terraced backyard beds. Through the years it’s survived droughts and late-season killing freezes that have taken out shrubs.
It actually got crowded out in the first place I planted it. By then, I had spread its seeds to another area where it happily took hold.
In early spring, I divide and thin out the plants, moving clumps of them by the shovelful to other locations in my yard. All I have to do is water the transplants for a week or so to help them get established.
The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center says about Black-eyed Susan: “(It) can become aggressive if given too perfect an environment and not enough competition.”
I have to smile at this statement because it’s 100 percent true. Although it’s said to be a full sun plant, Black-eyed Susan has proliferated the most in the shadier part of my yard—and I am working on establishing other plants that can compete.
In truth, I love this about Black-eyed Susan. Though it’s not where I started, my current garden goal is to create a larger cottage-style garden. And, while not everything in my yard and garden is native by a long shot, the new plants I’m adding from this point forward are.
Black-eyed Susan is practically made to help me with this endeavor. When I add new purchased plants—or start new perennials from seed, as I am doing with coneflower this year—I can rely on a free and ready supply of Black-eyed Susan to fill out expanded plant beds.
Plus, as a native plant, it’s beneficial for pollinators and birds. It’s a larval host to local butterflies—the Gorgone Checkerspot and Bordered Patch butterflies. In the winter, I leave the seed heads on the stems through winter to provide seasonal interest, as well as food for birds and overwinter housing for beneficial bugs.
It’s also deer resistant and tolerant of juglone, the toxin produced by black walnut trees that can make the ground below a tough spot to garden. Is there anything it can’t do?
If you want to grow Black-eyed Susan, here’s what I can pass along about it. It’s a full-sun plant, but if you live where there’s intense summer heat, like I do, you might find it likes afternoon shade. On the flip side, they do fine in the intense Southern sun. Even if the leaves look wilted, often they will perk back up in the evenings. (Water if it needs it, but it may not.)
Bloom time can vary. In the sunniest and shadiest places they grow in my yard, I find they bloom later in summer. However, there is one spot where they bloom much earlier in the season—it’s where they get their full-sun hours the first half of the day but also afternoon shade that offers relief from the heat. As tolerant as they are of just about everything, Black-eyed Susan is a bit of a Goldilocks this way.
Last but not least, perhaps my favorite thing about this Black-eyed Susan is how long-lasting the sunny yellow blooms are. Once they open, they last and last until frost finally gets them. In late summer, in the fading light of dusk, they look like a garden of floating stars.
