Helenium Red Wonder
Heleniums do the last stretch of summer better than almost anything, and 'Red Wonder' carries deep red daisy flowers splashed with yellow around a raised brown-black central boss, each head 5 to 8 cm across. The petals reflex backwards slightly as the flower ages, which gives the plant its characteristic shuttlecock look. Upright leafy stems hold the flowers in broad clusters through late summer and autumn.
This is a back-of-border plant for a hot colour scheme, and it comes into its own beside grasses, rudbeckias and late salvias when the earlier perennials are finished. Use it in prairie-style planting, a cottage border or a cutting patch. Bees and butterflies work heleniums heavily at a point in the season when there is little else open.
Plant in full sun in fertile soil that stays moist through summer, which matters more with heleniums than with most perennials. Dry ground gives short stems and thin flowering. Most heleniums reach 0.6 to 1 m and the taller stems benefit from support or an early-summer pinch in exposed gardens. Divide the clump every two or three years to keep it vigorous.
An upright herbaceous perennial that dies back to the ground each winter and reshoots in spring.
Trimming: Cut stems to the ground once flowering finishes in late autumn. Pinching or cutting back the stems by a third in early summer produces a shorter, sturdier plant that flowers slightly later and rarely needs staking.
Deadheading: Deadhead through the season to keep new flowers coming. Leave the last heads standing if you want seed for the birds and some winter shape.
Fertilising: Mulch with compost and apply a balanced slow-release fertiliser in early spring. Heleniums are hungry and flower noticeably better for a second light feed in December.
Watering: Keep the soil moist from December onward while buds are forming. This is the single biggest factor in how well a helenium performs, and plants left dry drop their lower leaves.
Pest Control: Aphids build up on the flowering stems and slugs take the spring shoots. Neither is serious on an established clump.
Disease Management: Powdery mildew appears on crowded or dry plants late in the season. Divide regularly, allow air between plants, and water at soil level rather than over the leaves.
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