Focus on Flowers.
Indigenous people boiled the flowers of our native coreopsis for drinks and the blooms also were used, in times past, to make dyes. Thirty-eight species of coreopsis are native to our continent, and it is the state wildflower of Mississippi and Florida.
The flowers are daisy-shaped with petals surrounding a central disc, which is usually dark colored. The plant has the unfortunate common name of "tickseed," derived from the Greek word "Koris." meaning bed bug.
The largest flowers are those of Coreopsis grandiflora, and its cultivar ‘Early Sunrise’ is the most popular garden-variety coreopsis. However, in my zone 6 garden ‘Zagreb’ is by far the toughest and most long flowering cultivar, and the lemon-yellow ‘Moonbeam’ is the most finicky.
Coreopsis plants have been hybridized to improve size, and garden persistence and color, so that today there are a great many cultivars available. They range in color from the original sunshiny yellow to bronze, red, gold, rose, cream, white, and caramel, as well as combinations of colors.
In 1891, it was listed as one of our best plants for sunny, well-drained soils, with a long period of bloom in the hot days of summer. Cut it back and it will quickly rebloom in the heat. However, the old variety ‘Verticillata’ spread too much and too quickly for my taste.
This is Moya Andrews, and today we focused on always cheerful.
