Growing Black-Eyed Susans

If you want a beautiful and easy to grow hardy flower in your garden, then consider the Black-eyed Susan. I have this gorgeous perennial growing in my garden and its wild appearance adds a bit of a prairie look to my other rather tame-looking plants and flowers.

The Black-eyed Susan is a robust plant that loves the benefits of a full sun location. It loves well-drained soil will little nitrogen and with the right conditions will grow from 18 inches up to 72 inches, depending on the variety. The daisy-like flowers, which bloom in mid to late summer, range in shades of yellow and gold with a dark brown, almost black middle center in the shape of a cone.

Black-eyed Susan can be grown from seeds but do better if propagated through the division of the roots. This is another one of those types of plants that you can get from a friend that already has a well established plant or purchase from a nursery. This flower is also a good one to pick up from a sale table, unless it looks diseased. Check the soil for moistness and the overall health of the plant. If there are any signs of life, it will still probably do well in the garden with a little extra loving care.

Black-eyed Susan has been known to be an invasive plant, but I have not found this to be true. I once planted Black-eyed Susan next to Echinacea and the following year, the Black-eyed Susan was gone, being replaced with the purple coneflower. Whether the Black-eyed Susan died, which I doubt because the plant was still there or it "mated" with the Echinacea, I don't know. I know that Black-eyed Susan is a close relative to Echinacea so perhaps the Echinacea had the stronger properties of the two and took over the Black-eyed Susan. I had searched in books and on-line for an answer and even asked some nursery experts, but could not find a resolution as to how this could have happened. I do know that you can't plant different varieties of mint to close to each other or the dominant one will take over. No matter how or what happened, my Black-eyed Susan became a purple coneflower. After that I planted them far away from each other and it never happened again.