False Sunflower

If you need a bold presence and a high-as-the-sun plant for your garden, look no further than the False Sunflower (Heliopsis helianthoides)! Also known as Ox-Eye Daisy, these sunny faces are an easy-care, fast-growing, cheerful native perennial! A fun-loving plant has several other nicknames including Smooth Oxeye and Oxeye Sunflower.

Bold yellow blooms with darker yellow, near orange button centers, pump out the flowers all season until fall! Blooming for an incredibly long time, the color and quality are non-stop on with this sun-loving perennial! Held tall on sturdy, almost woody stems, the coarse forest-green leaves are a lovely backdrop for the blooms.

Fans of pollinators, beneficial insects, and butterflies will approve of this upright bloom factory! This is a great nectar source for butterflies and pollinators, and birds love the seeds in the fall as a bountiful food source to fatten up for the winter. Thriving throughout USDA hardiness zones 3 to 9, these herbaceous perennials can handle a wide range of conditions and climates!

Planting and Application:

False Sunflower is the native variety that produces bright yellow daisy-like blooms for months during the growing season! Because it gets quite tall, you can rely on it to be a backdrop for your garden rooms. The coarse leaves set the stage for smaller perennials, in Rock gardens, and of course, for those lovely blooms to shine.

Pair with blue or purple blooming plants for an incredible, high contrast display! Punch it up with pink flowering perennials, or pair False Sunflower with other warm shades of yellow and orange for an energetic, monochromatic, modern look. Mixed with native Ornamental Grasses and other wildflowers, and plant some nitrogen-fixing Baptisia or Prairie Clover to further support the ecosystem while also improving soil health!

Their height makes them perfect at the back of your garden border, or to use along a fence (or as the fence itself!) throughout the growing season. Wildflower plantings and cutting gardens are natural locations for these long-blooming plants! Just like miniature versions of the true Sunflower, these bold beauties provide loads of wildflower seeds as a nutritious food source for local birds.

Plant en masse for native gardens, prairie plantings and to easily naturalize an area, and are great for stabilizing soil on eroding slopes! Plant in groupings or along backyard property lines to beautifully increase the biodiversity and native plants in your neighborhood! Create a quirky Cottage garden, or be the first on the block to ditch the water-hungry lawn into a meadow!

Any sunny areas and restoration plots, hot, dry, sunny, Xeric gardens are perfect for this tough, hardy plant! Enduring even in waste areas, trouble areas and large swaths of hot dry spots in your landscape, False Sunflower will quickly make them your new favorite view with a mass planting of golden sunny faces!

• Bright Yellow Ray-Petalled Flowers
• Floriferous Pollinator Magnet
• Sturdy, Large Form Perennial
• Hardy & Resilient North America Native
• Great Cut Flower, Backdrop, Habitat, & Specimens

#ProPlantTips for Care:

True to their name and for the most continuous bloom, False Sunflowers really shine their best in full sun! Open sunny areas with good air circulation are best. However, these natives are naturally more resistant to powdery mildew. Water well to establish these perennials, but afterward, these have very low watering needs. They do prefer well-drained soils, however seem to thrive in about any type of soil conditions. This resilience transfers to their ability to tolerate even poor soil and urban conditions.

For best results, an application of regular fertilizer, or enriching your garden beds with compost, will help ensure the best longevity and health of your False Sunflower. Prune back these perennials in late winter or early spring before it starts growing. This increases branching and removes old limbs.

Because this is a native wildflower, in some areas of the US, it may perform a little "too well". You are protected with our subscription to Plant Sentry™, which helps us comply with all local and state regulations for regionally invasive plants.

• Sun Sun Sun!
• Drought Tolerant
• Thrives in Poor Soil
• Low-Maintenance & Easy to Grow
• Powdery Mildew Resistant