When someone says “wildflower,” there’s a pretty good chance you think of a brown eyed Susan. These are probably the most well-known prairie flower, and for good reason – you can hardly travel a back road in Iowa in mid-summer without passing so many brown eyed Susans that they blur into a golden streak in the ditch.
Susans bloom for most of the summer and each blossom lasts for weeks on the plant, but what you don’t notice as you drive by is how tattered the blossoms get as time passes. I picked and shot the brown eyed Susans at the top of this post right after I noticed them beginning to bloom in mid-July, and stopped back at the patch again in mid-August on my way to gather some sunflower that was nearby. The poor brown eyed Susan petals were still the same radiant egg-yolk yellow-orange they had been the month before, but were so scalloped and pierced by hungry bugs that they looked like lace – I guess to bugs, they must taste as good as they look!
Brown Eyed Susan, Rudbeckia hirta
Shoot date: July 13, 2019
Possible use as a cut flower: Well, kind of … the blooms may last for a long time outside but are less happy indoors. They started getting quirky, frizzy, weird by the end of the first day.
