Like No Other

 Heliopsis

Last year, Nyla asked me to dig a Heliopsis out of her yard. Not the kind of thing I would have bought for myself. The foliage, which is all I could see when I dug it was weedy looking to me. The description of 'daisy-like' flowers was appealing but not very exciting. I like daisy though and I love a lot of the 'daisy-like' flowers... Osteospermum comes to mind. Plus, I have too much space and not enough budget to just turn things away. So I dug, drove it home and planted it toward the firepit from the 'Therese Bugnet' rose bushes. Then I forgot about it.

I had 'Loraine Sunshine' and I love it so I had an idea of what to expect. Of course, I wasn't expecting anything as showy as Loraine.

 Osteospermum

What a wonderful surprise it was to find out that it is showier with bigger and more flowers that last forever in the garden! Weedy foliage indeed! That hardly matters if the foliage is going to be absolutely covered in flowers for the whole season.

This is just the first year in my garden for this division. I can hardly wait for year 3 when it comes into its' own. There are a lot of annuals that fill with flowers like this for ages in my garden, Gazania comes to mind. But no other perennial gets this full of flowers from the start of the season all the way through.

Gazania