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The other day, I noticed that our neighbors had a birthday party at their place. Birthday balloons decorated the mailbox and family gathered to celebrate. The sweet young lady who lives next door was turning 13!
I wanted to mark the occasion with a gift, so I turned to the one thing that is plentiful in my yard right now: flowers. I managed to put together a few black-eyed Susans, blooms from a butterfly bush, and a couple of begonia sprigs.
I'm sharing this only because it's one of the only times I made a decent-looking arrangement. I don't have the natural "eye" for flower arranging, but I am willing to learn, and I've wanted to acquire those skills for a long time. Every year I consider taking a little course on it at the local community college. Practice makes perfect -- so I'll just keep growing flowers and trying to put them together until I find what works! Luckily, this time, it turned out to be something I could share.
Some flowers can't help but bring a smile to your face.
I've found such an example in a flower I planted around my mailbox last year. Black-eyed Susans, otherwise known as Rudbeckia, are simple, showy, and easy to grow. They are native to the prairies of the United States. As a strategically planted wildflower, they will quickly brighten up any dull space on a property.
Black-eyed Susans love the sun. My mailbox gets sun all day long -- hot, sticky Carolina sunshine these days -- and the plants appear to love it. This variety is the Rudbeckia 'Goldsturm' and these plants have grown large and healthy with very little maintenance. I fed them just once, this spring, and they've grown so tall that they've crowded out most weeds on their own. If they don't have adequate moisture, however, they quickly let me know by lowering their blooms and leaves. Daily watering is imperative, especially as the plants produce buds and blooms.
Black-eyed Susans attract bees, butterflies, and flying insects of all kinds.
They will steadily produce blooms to cheer the inside of a home as well. I recently cut my first blooms to bring indoors. Last year, I attempted to place them in a vase, but it just didn't quite look right. I tried again this year, and it still doesn't work. Somehow, in a fancy clear glass vase, the flowers look...uncomfortable. So I tried something a little different.
That's a bit better. Understated, unfussy, yet beautiful. I would expect nothing less from a prairie flower.
