Golds in the summer garden by Vicky Barney

As one who hates to water my garden, I’ve worried the last few weeks of hot, dry weather would be hard on my flower garden, parching even the hardiest perennials and shortening their flowering seasons.    But some of the early bloomers are still striking (penstemons, sweet william, jupiter’s beard), and the late season bloomers are beginning to put on a beautiful show.   Particularly my Golds. Black-eyed Susan Most visible of my Golds is a cultivated variety of the Black-eyed Susan ( Rudbeckia hirta ), a member of the sunflower ( Asteraceae ) family.    I planted an annual variety that reseeds ( Rudbeckia hirta “Irish Eyes”) and am pleased to see it has returned this year.   It isn’t as showy, though, as a perennial variety I planted at the same time, a variety I thought was native but now I'm not so sure.    Each Susan is at least 2 feet tall, has hairy leaves and sturdy stems holding a dozen or more daisy-like yellow flowers, each 4 inches in diameter.    They are just now bloo