Rudbeckia triloba

Rudbeckia triloba is the brown-eyed Susan, an airy, many-branched coneflower that throws up hundreds of small golden daisies, each with a neat dark brown to near-black eye, in a long blaze from late summer until hard frost. Where the familiar black-eyed Susans carry a few large flowers, this species scatters clouds of little ones over a bushy, three-lobed-leaved frame two to four feet tall, one of the most generous and long-blooming natives of the fall garden.

Technically a biennial or short-lived perennial, the plant behaves like an old friend that never quite leaves, forming a basal rosette one year, flowering the next, and reseeding so freely that a colony renews and expands itself for years on end. The genus honors Olof Rudbeck, the Swedish botanist who taught Linnaeus, while triloba, three-lobed, describes the shape of the lower leaves. Native from New York to Minnesota and south to Texas, the brown-eyed Susan turns up wild in old fields and along roadsides across the eastern and central states.

Allan Armitage, in his standard reference Herbaceous Perennial Plants, writes that this overlooked native should be included in more gardens, and the plant earns the praise: few perennials give so much fall color for so little trouble. Set the brown-eyed Susan in a meadow, a cottage border, a prairie or pollinator planting, or the sunny back of a mixed bed, where the swarms of daisies feed bees and butterflies and the seed heads carry goldfinches into winter. Pair with asters, goldenrod, salvias, and grasses for a late-season display that hums with life.

Give the plant a sunny to lightly shaded site with good, well-drained soil, and little else is needed beyond letting a few seedlings stand each year to carry the colony forward. Thin or move the volunteers where they are not wanted, cut the old stems after flowering or leave the seed heads for the birds, and enjoy one of the longest, most cheerful bloom seasons any native can offer. A plant to sow once and keep for good.