Search Results for: rudbeckia

Size: 3-5’ x 1-2’
Care: sun in moist well-drained soil
Wildlife Value: attracts butterflies, deer resistant

Henry Eilers discovered this cultivar while scouting a southern Illinois prairie.  Here’s his story.
Henry Eilers, born in 1934, long-time nurseryman, had introduced selections of different ornamental plants that he found growing at his nursery. But Rudbeckia subtomentosa ‘Henry Eilers’ is different.  Henry worked tirelessly for decades to preserve Illinois plants and their diversity.  In the early 1980’s while scouting a prairie remnant near Witt in Montgomery County IL he spied a small clump of uncommon Black-eyed susan.  Instead of the usual broad, flat petals, this one has narrow, quilled petals. He dug it and replanted it at his nursery where it grew on. It still grows in his wildflower garden. He decided to name it Rudbeckia ‘Montgomery County.’    In the 1990’s Henry took it and other native wildflowers to a native plant sale at the Shaw Arboretum, Missouri Botanic Garden. He and another nurseryman, Larry Lowman exchanged a few plants, one being this Rudbeckia. Several years later he found it for sale in the Plant Delight’s Nursery catalog, renamed Rudbeckia ‘Henry Eilers.’ Over time the plant appeared in gardening magazines and mail order catalogs. It now grows in the entrance planting at the National Botanic Garden in Washington, at the Missouri Botanic Garden and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. A nurseryman from the Check Republic told Henry he had been growing it!