There are two Rudbeckias in bloom right now: R. hirta and R. triloba. I love them both, but they are quite different.
R. hirta (below) has a basal clump of nicely textured leaves, and sends up branching stems with flowers that are good as cut flowers. It’s got bristly, hairy leaves and stems. If you look closely, you can see that some bug or another has nibbled the edges of some of the petals. The rabbits don’t seem to bother it, although I could be wrong—this plant multiplies like rabbits. It will form a nice swath in a garden bed if you let it. It both seeds in and spreads by roots, but you can pull it up easily enough when it gets into places you don’t want it. It can take some shade or quite a bit of sun, but it resents too much dryness.
I am not big on watering established plants, so they are looking looking a little scruffier than usual. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), our weather is “abnormally dry.” These plants seeded in where they are, and most summers occasional runoff from the downspout is available and appreciated.
R. triloba, on the other hand, forms a bushy plant. The lobed leaves are near the ground, and the leaves get simpler as the plant shoots up. The flowers are very similar in color to R. hirta’s flowers, perhaps just a little warmer towards their centers, but the petals are distinctly shorter. I will be trimming these flower stalks pretty aggressively once the flowers are past their prime, so that most of their energy goes into making more roots for next year.
Texturally, R. hirta gives you the sense of being a bristly, sturdy plant that could survive anything, while R. triloba seems more delicate—the leaves are smoother and the overall texture is finer. Neither plant is really delicate or exceptionally sturdy, although whether one can take less water than the other is beyond my knowledge at this point. As first-year plants, R. triloba is getting watered quite thoroughly roughly once a week in its parched rain garden digs. Its pouting leaves precipitated a thorough watering this morning.