Larry Hurley’s Photo Of The Week: Quilling, without the cards

Rudbeckia subtomentosa, known as “Sweet Coneflower” is one of a number of species of Black-eyed Susans. According to the Missouri Botanical Garden, in 2003 a nurseryman named Henry Eilers found this unusual form with quilled petals in the wild. If you took a typical flat petal on a Mum or a Black-eyed Susan and rolled it like you might do with cigarette paper so that you had a tube, that’s a quilled petal. Only hollow, of course.

It was released to the nursery industry as cultivar ‘Henry Eilers’ (co-incidence?), and that was great, although it was on the tall side. A few years later Terra Nova Nurseries in Oregon released a shorter form called ‘Little Henry.’ So the plant in the photo is Rudbeckia subtomentosa ‘Little Henry’. Or, in my garden, it’s just “Hey, you.”

It has a unique soft yellow color that is lighter than in the photo that I find particularly soothing. It’s upright and normally would be spread out more than in the photo, but because rabbits are fond of most Rudbeckias, it’s nether regions are squeezed together in a chicken wire corset. It’s about 4 feet tall, exceeding expectations, but we had about a foot more of rain more than usual this spring and early summer, and that pushed plants into greater heights than normal. I don’t have much deer activity in this garden, so can’t expound on deer resistance. Full sun, average soil, average moisture.

I happened to find this particular plant at an end-of-season sale in November of last year at Gerten’s Garden Center in Minneapolis. I overwintered the dormant potted plant in my cold garage and planted it in early May.

You’ve just gotta get one of these!