Aphids....

You could just take a hose and give a good hard spray to knock them off. They lose their mouth parts and can't re-attach even if they crawl back up. The ones I don't remove with the spray I squish :O

Vera

go to the bug files at Davesgarden and look for a picture - then you'll be able to search on an organic method.
a good first step is soapy water - but be sure not to use antibacterial soap - just palmolive or ivory or something like that

Yes, red aphids. That's one reason I gave up trying to grow 'Loraine Sunshine.' It would continually get attacked by these rather large aphids. Spraying them off with water didn't work very well, so I resorted to neem or horicultural oils. Finally I just tossed the plant. It was a losing battle.

I had the same experience with all Heliopsis including Loraine Sunshine. They would get totally infested with these red aphids. Spraying with Malathion will knock them dead, but I'm usually too lazy to mix some up, so I dug out all the plants and tossed them.

I did make an interesting observation though. One Loraine Sunshine self sowed in a much shadier area and has never gotten these bugs. It doesn't grow as well as the ones that were in full sun, but at least it doesn't get the aphids.

Kevin