Beautiful. I haven’t grown these before but have been thinking about trying them. I’ve usually leaned toward cool colors in the past but lately have been more interested in some of the oranges and reds.

I should add that I have been disappointed to rarely see them at the nurseries, at least not the nurseries I frequent. I have owned Mardi Gras for many years and I did find that one at a local nursery, but the others have all been mailorder.

I am going to try for some dwarf varieties next year. It’s not that I don’t like their usual taller height, I do, but I would like some for the foreground.

i do like the many colors I see as they fade! Lemon Drop has such large flowers! Very pretty.

Sigh - the entire lot turned up their toes, this awful dry summer. Not a single helenium, geum, phlox or aster survived...fecking bindweed still managed to be a lushly green unwelcome presence.

Have planted many helenium cultivars in mixed perennial beds and maintained them over years. I still agree that they tend to be relatively high maintenance perennials, needing regular division with upgraded soil. Every three years might seem excessive, but that sometimes seems necessary both to keep them blooming at stated heights and also to just keep them alive.

Nevertheless, I still feel that they're well worth the effort.

e.g. https://www.houzz.com/discussions/its-helenium-time-dsvw-vd~1678489

I just bought Mariachi Siesta and Salsa this year from my local nursery. So far they are doing good and not flopping. I really like the warm spicy tones for fall bloomers!

Sunnyborders - I’m glad you mentioned the need for frequent division and rich soil because I hadn’t given it an extra thought. I guess I’ve been lucky with my lone Mardi Gras which has managed without division and extra fertilizer for many years. I will keep my eye on my newer ones in the Mariachi series that I got from Santa Rosa Gardens last season. And I will definitely toss some fertilizer on my neglected Mardi Gras.

i just checked Digging Dog for Heleniums and they are with one exception ”Out of sSock“ on their entire inventory of Heleniums. I’d like to acquire Moorheim Beauty at the very least. I remember checking them at the same time last year with similar results. I must remember to check on them next spring instead!

This thread now has me checking out new online sources and new varieties of Helenium. I really struggled when I ordered last year with whether to get a yellow-centered yellow variety, or a brown centered yellow variety. Does anyone grow either Tiny Dancer or Zimbelstern?

https://www.bluestoneperennials.com/HETD

https://www.google.com/search?q=Helenium+%E2%80%98Zimbelstern&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=ZxIpu-kICUCv4M%253A%252CGa_Uqr3KCpV7WM%252C_&usg=AFrqEzerpdouyb9yuUG31WSKHZImxcKYug&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiq__2Osr7dAhUq74MKHZKaDkAQ9QEwAnoECAQQBA#imgrc=_

Would like opinions on your experience with either.

Mardi Gras

I haven’t had to divide any of my Heleniums, so it may depend on growing conditions. I have two Mardi Gras, one of which is something like 10 years old. MG starts blooming for me in early July and blooms well for 6-8 weeks, but is still throwing out a few blooms now. I also have some seed-grown, tall, fall-blooming Heleniums. They are a range of red to yellow, and often get eaten by voles under the snow, but self-seed enough that they haven’t disappeared over the 5+ years they have been there. I have added a couple of shorter ones over the last two years, and they seem happy, but I don’t know how they will do in the long run. My MG and my new plants are in well-drained soil, and my tall fall-bloomers are in richer, more moist soil, but still well-drained.

I really like Helenium too and need a yellow.

Peren.all - thanks for the inspiring photos! What is the name of that amazing looking yellow plant behind Lloydster. Wieck??

Thank you echolane! It is Helianthus 'Lemon Queen'. I love it for it's impressive size and colour. The bees go crazy for it too.

Moeheim Beauty is my favorite because it starts flowering in early to mid June and goes until frost. SEF is best in July and Loydster Wieck does not bloom until August.

Like NHBabs I have had mine for years without need for division. Moerheim Beauty has been in the garden for about 14 years undisturbed.

Lovely pictures, perennials.all.

Ecolane, NHBab's and peren.all's comments are obviously very relevant. Relative success with Helenium may be more influenced by differences in growing conditions than relative success for many other typical garden perennials. Still you can also read other statements about specific requirements for Helenium-growing success on-line.

I tend to use taller Helenium, though I have planted many of the often shorter more modern ones. I've noticed consistently that taller Helenium get shorter within a couple of years of (re)planting in my gardens. I do also myself tend to be big on upgrading soil with weed-free compost, on watering and do intend to plant according to sprinkler systems.

A useful survey of the older Helenium cultivars (viz. see confusion with the name Zimbelstern):

http://www.helenium.net/helenium.htm

grabembythegreenthumb I must have been posting as you were since I did not see your comment.

Thank you sunnyborders! Babs and I are pretty much parallel zonally. I am always eager to here her successes and failures with hardiness. There are differences in soil conditions between us I believe. I have rich slightly acidic sandy loam and beyond good snow cover.

SB some plants you would have success with would be very borderline for me. The 5a - 5b is a real distinction. Despite the fact that we are only a few hundred miles apart our weather/conditions are quite different. Thankfully for me there are a lot of similarities as well! I am always eager to see and hear what you, rouge, woody and others are growing too!

Great link on Heleniums SB, I saved it. Thank you.

Waypoint - i can relate to your comment about preferring cool colors and thinking about trying the warmer colors we associate so strongly with Heleniums, I struggled with how to bring them into my mostly cool color dominated garden. Only one of my areas features warmer colors. It is centered around possibly my favorite rose, Matangi. Its red orange flowers flash wirh random splashes of silvery white and its petals have silvery white undersides. The flowers are particularly long lasting. I’ve mixed in grasses (Pennisetum) and last fall added Heleniums and I think it looks very nice. So much so that I’m going to try to find more Heleniums for next year.

But last fall I mixed Heleniums into my perennial bed with a certain degree of apprehension. I’ve always been attracted to the cool colors for my garden. Almost all of my many roses are in cool colors. My perennial bed is dominated by the colorful new Echinaceas, along with Agastache and Penstemon and grasses and almost everything is what would be defined as cool colors. But some of the more irresistible Echinaceas cross the line into warm colors, so I’ve just added them in anyway and found they blend in without causing any wincing. But the warmly colored Heleniums make more of a color statement than the Echinaceas do and I was worried how that would work out. This year at least the Echinaceas were pretty much done when the Heleniums started blooming so it’s been almost a non issue. I’m going to quit worrying about it.

As an aside, I had my colors done years ago and based on my skin tones, eye and hair color (but mainly skin tones) I was classified as a “vivid bronze autumn”. That certainly matches with my lifelong preference for fall with its marvelous array of warm-toned leaf colors. My wardrobe consists entirely of those warm color tones. But oddly my garden has not reflected my personal style at all. Instead, I’ve always had a clear and dominant preference for the cool colors in the garden. The Heleniums are steering me in a new direction!

Peren.all, I think our growing soil conditions are more similar than you think, though my soil tends to be nutrient poor before I add composted manure and may be more acid than yours. My soil is acid, fine sandy loam and we typically have great snow cover, though rain midwinter the last couple of years has reduced that. No wonder we tend to have success with similar plants while Rouge, Sunny borders, and Woodyoak with their finer textured, less acid soils often have different experiences. I think the real estate comment about it being all about location applies equally to gardening.

Echolane, am I remembering correctly that you are in the Bay Area in CA? What is your soil like?

Yes, Bay Area, west side, known as the mid-peninsula. A great microclimate. About 95% of.my garden is raised beds, mostly one large native rock in height (about 6” - 7” in most cases), and over native clay soil. I live in a low lying area. I remember trying to plant a tree one rainy winter and encountering water at the depth of my shovel. My first love was rhododendrons so I had 40 yards each of fir bark, river sand, and compost brought in and mixed with clay. Most of my garden still benefits from that process even though it was about 40 years ago. I have no idea what the ph is but my plants seem to do well And digging in it is easy. Well, except for where tree roots have invaded! Don’t get me started on redwood tree roots!

Think NHBabs is correct about our own garden soil being fine textured and that it is likely slightly alkaline.

We live at the north end of the Oak Ridges Moraine and I've gardened here with some very different soil types (e.g. installed and maintained large perennial gardens on different sides of the same street, one with heavy clay and the other with very sandy soil). Still I feel comfortable working with clay (until it rains). Of course, it's going a bit far when the home builder remove top soil and then apparently sell it or dump it elsewhere.

Agree with the NHBabs's real estate analogy, but, following David Tomlinson, would also emphasize microclimates (+) within the same garden. It seems, at least with some perennials, that no two spots have exactly the same overall growing conditions for the same cultivar. As an old gardening adage goes: "If you want a plant but am not sure where to plant it, buy three, plant them in three different spots and then the plant will tell you where it should have been planted".

My Mardi Gras which was such a profuse bloomer last year and butterfly magnet, went belly up (after 3 years in the ground). Looked everywhere, but only Northland Nursery had a few varieties - and no MG. I planted one early variety, one late and one red (can’t remember the cultivars off the top of my head). All three were rather disappointing. I’m going to chalk this up to first year blues; we shall see what happens next year. I had ‘Tiny Dancer’ in another area and this third year in it finally had some tiny blooms - for about 2 weeks. I honestly think I will be shovel pruning it when I get in one of those irritated moods. Wish I could find Mardi Gras again...