A prickle: Helenium ‘Moerheim Beauty’
Bramble & Briar #190
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I don’t remember where I first encountered the scarlet petalled sneezeweed, Helenium ‘Moerheim Beauty’, but I know I fell for it hard and fast. There are several exotic summer daisies that play around with fiery tones – varieties of the annual Rudbeckia hirta, the French marigold Tagetes patula ‘Burning Embers’ – and they’re all fabulous. But nothing quite hits the spot like this helenium, with its skirt of scallop-fringed petals around the chunky, central boss of disc florets, chocolate brown at first, and then...
…it’s the way this flower ages that makes it doubly captivating and, since it’s generous with its blooms, and often planted in great drifts, you get to see iterations at different stages, all at once. There’s none of the droopy senescence of an echinacea, glorious as they are in their own right. As a helenium ages, it gets gradually dusted with gold – first, as the pollen burnishes the rich brown of that central hub, and then as the petals age, scarlet to vermillion, then increasingly shot through with yellow. Each flower, a tiny blaze all of its own.
I have planted them more for other people than here, though there have been periods when it’s graced these borders. Mainly, in years when I find myself able to be particularly punctilious around the whole mollusc situation in spring, since heleniums – while fully hardy – seem prone here to being mowed down relentlessly the moment the shoots emerge above ground. Once through that initial danger period, they’re no trouble at all, and so planting them larger and later has also worked. Plus, they deal particularly well with being divided, which is just as well for those gorgeous, fiery drifts. I feel a plant hunt coming on.
Now I think of it, if you find yourself within striking distance of Kent next weekend, the Great Comp Summer Show is well worth a visit for music, artisan crafts and – most importantly – plants. Not to mention the wonderful gardens (where after a visit yesterday the hydrangeas are looking surprisingly perky) and tea room. Let me know if you’re coming, I may well see you there!
I’m a big helenium fan, such wonderful colourings! I like to think of them as little flamenco dancers, the ladies flinging their skirts around.
Free draining soil and the recent droughts though mean they just aren’t practical in my garden unfortunately.