Brown-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia triloba)
Height: 2 to 5 feet
Bloom Time: August to October
Bloom Description: Rays of yellow petals with brown centers
Sun: Full sun to part shade
Attracts: Pollinators, Bees, and Songbirds
Aster Family
Native to Jefferson County
This prairie native is a late summer bloomer similar to Black-Eyed Susan, but with smaller and more abundant flowers on branching stems. It has a bushy growth habit with a spread of 2 to 3 feet.
In its natural habitat, Brown-Eyed Susan can be found in a diversity of habitats, including along streambanks, rocky slopes meadow edges, and along roadsides and rail corridors. It is a short-lived perennial or sometimes a biennial that perpetuates itself through seed. This plant will grow under most conditions, but it does best in full sun and loamy soil with moderate moisture. It drought tolerant once established.
In natural landscape plantings, Brown-Eyed Susan has an informal style that works best in informal or prairie gardens. It works well with native grasses and other prairie plants, and will benefit from their support in keeping it upright.
Brown-Eyed Susan provides a valuable pollen and nectar source filling a late-season need for honeybees, native bees, and beneficial insects when other herbaceous plants and trees have finished blooming for the year.
This plant also attracts songbirds foraging insects and later in the fall once the blooms have gone to seed. Songbirds known to visit Brown-Eyed Susan are thrushes, chickadees, and thrashers.
23 species of butterflies and moths use the leaves as a caterpillar host plant. ■
