A Slate-summer and autumn A border fillers, long-lasting cut flowers and container troopers, rudbeckias are stellar -even in all this summer's heat. The bright golden ones are not my cup of tea, but I adore the aubergines, mahoganies, crimsons and yellow greens. 'Cherry Brandy' is a long-standing stalwart I've picked until Christmas for many years and I love the seed-grown, ever-flowering mix 'Sahara', but they're only a fraction of what is available with recent breeding.
We have 10 new varieties on trial in the garden here now, all doing superbly, despite the heat. Recently I went to the open days at Ball Colegrave in Oxfordshire, one of the biggest suppliers of bedding annuals and perennials to nurseries and garden centres around the UK. They had lots of new ones, too, including a crimson-centred, gingernut-petalled Sunburst 'Radiant' and a mix of more faded tones in 'Rudy Double Rose Yellow'. Both really did look radiant and will surely be in lots of garden centres and nurseries very soon.
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