If you’re a fan of the upcoming over-the-top Fat Tuesday bash in the Big Easy, you can celebrate year-round with your own festival of colorful excess in the perennial garden – with Helenium Mardi Gras.
This bodacious Helen’s Flower produces a riot of 1-1/2 to 2-inch “tie-dyed” blooms for six to eight weeks in summer, from late June to early August. Its yellow petals, lavishly streaked with orange red, form wildly patterned stiff skirts around a deep brown, mounded center cone.
Mardi Gras forms upright clumps with sturdy stems that sway gracefully in summer breezes. A massed planting will form tight shrubby bushes of impressive size in two years, with flowers 36-40 inches tall, foliage 30 inches tall and 25 inches spread. Let its light shine in the back of the border, or use it to anchor the center of a perennial island bed. It also makes an outstanding cut flower.
With good resistance to most insects and diseases, Mardi Gras will thrive in full sun and well-drained soil. While it's happiest with frequent waterings, it doesn’t require high fertility levels.
A “tried and true” perennial cultivar if ever there was one, Mardi Gras comes to Blooms of Bressingham from Bob Brown in the UK.
For more information on this, or the 200 other terrific varieties from Blooms of Bressingham®, visit the BloomsofBressinghamplants.com, or contact Christine Kelleher at 800.232.9557, ext. 2512.
Source: Blooms of Bressingham
