some local yellow daisies
As the big spring bloom winds down I’ve been struck by how many of the native plants have yellow flowers. It clearly offers the plants an evolutionary advantage since bees love yellow and bees are some of the major pollinators. This is a little roundup of the three yellow daisy-flowered shrubs and sub-shrubs that I grow.
Coast sunflower as you find it…at the coast.
Encelia californica hails from the more coastal edges of Southern and Central California, hence its common name of “coast sunflower.” A dark central button anchors golden yellow rays that shoot out in an informal circle. It’s a popular choice for both gardens flowering roadside wildflower mixes.
The green, green leaves of this encelia.
With so many other natives bearing grayish leaves, the bright green leaves of this plant really stand out. I’ve seen it used locally, where an occasional drink during the summer can help keep it green and flowering through the summer. In my garden the plants have a mostly unirrigated spot behind a fence, so they exercise their natural tendency to defoliate and stop blooming when the weather warms.
Giant coreopsis, Coreopsis gigantea, earns its name more from the tall plant size rather than the size of its flowers. The weird plant will eventually form what looks like a trunk from three to six feet tall that sprout finely-cut leaves. This takes a few years–My two year old seedlings are in the two to two and a half foot tall range. Blooms are perky yellow daisies about three inches across. I planted a little grove of these in a back corner of the garden, but the grove has dwindled to just a few plants thanks to a gopher that found the little tree trunks too delicious to pass up. Grrrr. Times like this I hate hate the full circle of nature.
This last one’s San Diego County sunflower. The current botanical name is Bahiopsis laciniata though I and everyone else I know around here learned its name as Viguiera lacinata. Its flowers come in at about an inch and a half across, so it’s smaller than the previous two. But a blooming bush of it makes a low, neat mound in the garden or in the local wilds. Of these three, the flowers have the most “refined” look to them–if you consider French marigolds and yellow cosmos to be refined plants. Because of it being a local plant it’s a fairly common denizen of local native plant gardens. Also, a lot of coastal-zone roadside restoration projects around here seem to have this plant in the mix.
Although I’ve call all of these “daisies,” each has its own special character and use in the garden. The encelia is a great pick for its long bloom when watered. The coreopsis is a perky mass of flowers when it’s in bloom, but few California natives stand up to it in weirdness during its leafless state in the summer and fall. The San Diego County sunflower is a nice tidy mound with so many flowers you might confuse it for an an annual. But it’s best to plant some decoy plants around it for the dry parts of year when it dies back.
Give them a try. The bees will thank you.
May 26 2010 06:30 am | Categories: gardening • my garden | Tags: Bahiopsis laciniata • Coreopsis gigantea • Encelia californica • Viguiera lacinata • yellow
Pomona Belvedere on 27 May 2010 at 12:28 pm #
Wow, thanks for introducing me to these wildflowers. We have only the small cosmos up here, now I’m wondering if I can introduce the giants without dicing terribly with local cosmos strains…and I get it about the gophers. My first tulip bed years ago — sand hauled from the creek, horse manure hand-picked from the pasture, and 50 tulips planted with lovely visions in mind — yielded exactly ONE tulip. The gophers ate the rest.
I didn’t know bees liked yellow; I’d often wondered why so many early spring (and even later spring) flowers are yellow, in every climate I’ve lived in.
ryan on 28 May 2010 at 8:34 am #
I lie yellows. I’ve had a coreopsis gigantea in a large container for three years now, still hasn’t bloomed. I really like it for some reason. In the container I can tuck it out of sight when it goes dormant in the summer. I would go Caddyshack on it if gophers attacked it.
Country Mouse on 29 May 2010 at 6:46 am #
I hate to tell you this but “yellow daisies” are one of my pet dislikes. Not just any yellow flowers but specifically daisy types. Especially those with dark green foliage. I have no idea why I react badly to this combination. I am now, however, foster mother to the propagation group’s Encelia californica mother plant (can you be foster mother to a mother?) and am learning to love her! I have wondered why so many flowers especially early spring ones are yellow. And it’s not only the natives — the myrtle and the broom too. In the UK the forsythia were the earliest. Well the universe is conspiring to get me over this thing I have about yellow daisies I guess!
Wendy on 31 May 2010 at 6:08 pm #
I love coreopsis and have it all over my yard. Like everywhere! These yellow blooms are so nice as a complement in any garden.
Arleen Webster/Camissonia's Corner on 31 May 2010 at 9:04 pm #
Very cool. All three make for nice yellows in the garden. My Encelia is about 4 years old now, and looking a little worse for wear, so either I need to hard prune it and hope for rejuvenated growth or I’ll have to replace it with a newer model. Last November, I bought a 1-gallon giant coreopsis from the fall sale at Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden, and I’m still waiting with baited breath for it to flower. I have a nice little specimen of the San Diego sunflower that’s literally everblooming in my front yard (and yes, I’m one of those that know it as Viguiera laciniata, so thanks for the taxonomic update). The 3/27/10 post on my blog has pix of a Bramble green hairstreak on the flower.
Ruth on 01 Jun 2010 at 8:26 pm #
Hi, James, Yellow flowers are so cheerful and growing things for the bees is super! I enjoyed your post. I’ve left a challenge for you on my blog!
lostlandscape on 01 Jun 2010 at 9:18 pm #
Pomona, so both you and your gopher appreciate the finer tulips in life… But I see the startup calamity didn’t stop you from finding a way to live with the little undergroundings. I’ll have to admit to picking some plants that are purportedly quite poisonous to mammals, hoping to deter the beasts. Still, they found them perfectly delicious.
Ryan, the giant coreopsis seems to be shy to start blooming. Only one of my remaining plants bloomed this year, though it’s the largest plant in the sunniest, most favorable spot.
CM, nowhere in the post did I say I LOVE these plants. I have a thing with (as in, “against”) yellow myself, though my hard edge is melting in my old age, though slowly. I have a patch of mediterranean gray-leaved santolinas that are blooming now with flowers the color of fried egg yolks. I really wish that plant wouldn’t bother to flower!
Wendy, for years I had some hybrid coreopsis that gently reseeded themselves around the garden–nothing weedy at all. It was always nice to see them return. Their color was almost yellow-orange, and I appreciated their color better, but then I’m not a bee.
Arleen, very interesting to read your experience with the SD sunflower. Thanks for sharing how well yours is doing for you. My spot for it is definitely a “tough love” zone where it definitely gets zero pampering (and almost zero added water). Even plants in an occasionally watered revegetation zone I’ve been walking by for two decades always take the summer off. I hope people aren’t discouraged by what I wrote.
Ruth, thanks for the fun challenge! I don’t always get around to being able to participate in these, but this one looks like a fun one and I’ll try to!