Here you see the swath of Black-eyed Susans that I once welcomed because they quickly filled in the longest sunny border in my front yard. So cheerful! Such long-lasting blooms! Not to mention, Maryland’s State Flower.
But this year I noticed they had killed off a lot of my ground cover Sedum (S. takeseminse), threatening even taller perennials and closing in on the walkway. You know how it’s hard to rid your garden of good-looking plants? People pay good money for them, right? But more isn’t necessarily better, and in the case of thuggish plants – native or not – I steel myself to toss them but I really enjoyed it.
It felt good to rescue shorter plants from the fast-moving threat and finally confine the still-cheerful, still long-blooming Susans (as I affectionately call them) to a manageable bunch, where I can keep an eye on them.
I removed about two-thirds of the Susans and in their place I planted a dry-garden mix of Russian sage, Agastache, Rose Campion and three full-grown Little Bluestem grasses. I did all this in early August – I know, I know! – but who among us hasn’t broken all the when-to-plant rules in the book? I had my reasons, as we always do.
Where to grow Black-eyed Susans where they won’t bully neighbors? In places like this raised bed filled with old Boxwoods and some Asiatic lilies that tower over the Susans. I adopted this little garden just a year ago and love that it was easy to improve simply by replacing weeds with the Susans, which block out new weeds pretty darn well with their height and good basal foliage.
Back at my house, where I’m training vines to provide screening, the best performers so far are the Morning Glories. Up against the Wedgewood blue house, I can’t resist them! Every morning I inspect them. I counted the blossoms until there were too many to count. Training vines may just be my favorite gardening task of all. Just a bit of tying up here and wrapping stems around other stems there. No bending down, no lifting, no tools needed. Playing with these fast-growing plants with beautiful blossoms is pure fun. 
To my eyes, Morning Glories go well with everything in the garden, like the orange reblooms of the Crossvine, but also purple Petunias and pink chairs.
But look at the price I’m paying in weeding for all that glory in the morning! I bet a dozen people warned me about the awe-inspiring reseeding capacity of Morning Glories but I tossed off those warnings as overblown. After all, I actually like a bit of weeding.
But this is not a bit of weeding! Look how easily the seedlings are poking up through the groundcover Sedum. The entire front garden seems to be covered in Morning Glory seeds, after being grown here just one season.
So now what? Should I ever let them bloom again? I am so conflicted.
I find that Rudbeckia fulgida var. sullivantii ‘Goldsturm’ were the most aggressive. The offspring of ‘Goldy’ were beautiful in my early garden. Like you I got tired of ‘her’ running over the less aggressive natives that I wanted to populate my garden and began to edit. Honestly I often miss that mass of golden yellow.
If I didn’t pull morning glory down before it goes to seed, it would cover my neighborhood. As it is the seeds seem to say viable for years!
No problem with Black-eyed Susan, but I am currently waging war against brown-eyed Susan and cut leaf coneflower.
I was astonished to learn that folks actually PLANT Morning Glory- here in the north west they are a horrible, impossible to irradiate weed!!!
You are confusing morning glory with bindweed. Look similar but not the same.
What is one man’s “thug” is another man’s wish-I-could-grow-it plant. I’ve not been able to grow Susans or Russian sage, most golden rods, or any form of agastache. I’ve tried growing these repeatedly in different spots. Is this because of our long 4-5 month hot (above 90 degrees) summers with little rain or our schizophrenic weather where we receive huge downpours for weeks followed by drought for months sprinkled with a few spider mites to keep things interesting? Send me your extra morning glories. I’ll take them.
Oh this made me chuckle!! I’m a Marylander too, and I use “Susan” as a holder in areas that I’ve cleared but haven’t figured out what to plant – so then pulling it out isn’t too bad because the plant was just holding the spot from weeds. But I still post them as free and put them at the end of my driveway and in a day they are gone – so all good! I do have one area where I let her go in all her aggressive glory and I do love the mass of color this time of year!
Morning glory!! What were you thinking!!! And with many folks warning you!!!! That was one of my first nemesis’s!! I so hate morning glory! Especially when there are so many other choices!!! One of my favorite annual vines is Hyacinth Bean vine. Looks great till a hard frost – does not self seed but the seeds are easy to keep till the following year and replant. And I think the blooms would look great against the blue house!
Keep us posted on the fate of the Morning Glory! My vote – rip it out!!!!!
I know, my bad. But Hyacinth Bean I tried last year and it made huge amounts of foliage and literally 3 blooms just before winter – that’s all. I’ll explore other annuals next year that don’t seed profusely but in the meantime, the perennials are creeping along – 2 clematis, 1 native honeysuckle and 4 crossvines.
I get rid of all Black Eyed Susans before they show up uninvited. Same with Morning Glories although I am more forgiving of purple as opposed to yellow.
I loved my Black Eye Susans and was so sad when my husband decided to thin them out… I did not know he meant to toss them out. Thank goodness they were a little sneaky and have popped up all over the garden in different places. He feels the same with our purple cone flowers which seem to be reseeding everywhere as well. Maybe I should try some morning glories next year just to watch him sputter.
I planted Black Eyed Susan and Coneflower together in a raised bed. Needless to say, I need to rescue the Coneflower, plan to move it to another raised bed where hopefully it will co-exist with penstemon. The BES will be moved to a “meadow” area where it can spread all it wants to. My worst nightmares are trumpet vine and spearmint. Then there is mulberry and honeysuckle, courtesy of the neighbors. It’s a never-ending battle.
At least Mulberries serve as a diversion for wildlife, who love the fruit and the fact that it’s easy to get to. Last year there were hardly any mulberries and the critters wiped out my plums and gooseberries, and a lot of the raspberries. This year there were a lot of mulberries and they left everything else alone. Ripe mulberries are very sweet and when they were young, our grandkids gorged themselves on the berries, resulting in purple stains on hands, faces, and clothing. Our daughter was not happy about that!
Another thug plant is Joe Pye Weed, which spreads everywhere. I have ample room for it to grow where it will, but anyone who has a small yard should be aware of the need to strictly control it.
I’m in Western MD and was similarly sympathetic to the black eyes. However many of the giant black eye hedges last year developed what I believe was a fungus and died off early. This year I had less reseeding and vowed to just reign in the spread. I too introduced morning glories several years ago and pay for it each season. The drought up here seems to be limiting the pace of growth of the vines so smaller plants mean easier weedi ng, and I get more of them before they go to seed. I was glad to read your rant about the exact pair of culprits that have annoyed me for years!
On their behalf however, large bunches of black eye Susan’s were welcome table decorations at civic and political events where I was a volunteer locally. My abundance became the source for free fresh and splashy Maryland theme displays.
Hahaha! Susan’s, hey? Nice!
Farmers call morning glory bindweed for good reason. Maybe fewer rotary noisemakers might not hurt garden tranquility, though.
It’s the nativar syndrome, isn’t it, a little bit? Carefree, low maintenance plants, easy to propagate and sell at the big box. Then again as people say, that carpet of gold and vines exuberant with blossoms. Hard to resist.
But it’s cool to have a namesake plant!
Now I know what to do with my Mardi Gras beads! thanks!
I was all set to pull out some of my black eyed susans last week until I noticed several several goldfinches chowing down. Guess I’ll wait a bit before I whack them. The seedlings are easy to pull out though, although they are sneaky.
Love your crossvine and it’s on my short list. I already yanked my wilt prone large flowered clematis 2 weeks of beauty; months of dead foliage) and it’s a perfect no-fuss replacement
Birds spread morning glory seeds, you’re neighbors will have them now too. Try moonflower, a great screening vine. I plant mints and golden rod in big plastic (7 gal) pots with holes in the bottoms. Keeps the running roots corralled.
Years ago, friends encouraged us to thin their thriving beds of black-eyed susans. They live a few hundred crow-fly yards through woods from us, and thus we share deer. The deer won’t touch them, they said. A year after planting a 20 x 6′ bed on a hillside, we were delighted with their profuse blooms over long seasons. The pleasure repeated for several years until, so it seemed, the deer changed their minds about what they liked to eat. For another few years, we tried to protect our investment of time and the lives of the flowers with various powders and sprays guaranteed to move the deer elsewhere. However, their persistence won. After several more years, we are lucky to spy even one black-eyed susan during the season.
I love morning glories. It looks like the one you have is Grandpa Ott’s, which, once planted, will never need to be planted again. It seeds itself, but I can’t be angry at it since it is so easy to pull. What a glorious deep purple. Now, if only Heavenly Blue would seed this profusely! I have resorted to buying small plants each year, and they take forever to bloom in my CT garden: October! And each and every year, they are cut short by a killing frost, breaking my heart. But that shade of blue makes my heart beat faster in a way very few other plants can.
I cannot grow morning glories from seeds no matter what tricks I try. None have ever come up the following year either. I have to buy plants if I want any of their delightful blooms. Last year I got just 3 flowers before the first frost…. It’s odd, because they have to somewhat closely related to bindweed, which happily blooms all summer.
I think the rabbits eat all our Black eyed Susans and also Cone Flowers in Cincinnati.
If you haven’t grown the moonflower, Ipomoea alba, you are in for a real treat. The 6″ flowers open in the evening, are fragrant and attract moths. The leaves are heart-shaped like morning glories, but larger and the vines are vigorous and will easily reach 20 feet or more. It is tender, and does not re-sow in my garden in Kensington, Md. I would not be without this plant in my summer garden.
Moonflower is highly toxic and I know someone who almost died from it. Even touching it is dangerous. Where I grew up they called it jimson weed n cuz it grew all over the place. Awful plant
Moonflower is a common name for more than one plant. The very toxic ones are Daturas and jimsonweed is a Datura. Ipomoea alba is vine related to morning glories. I keep a fence around my Ipomea albas when they are small because rabbits will eat them.
I planted annual black eyed Susan Vine this year. Very pretty. Just hope it doesn’t reseed like the Grandpa Ott morning glory I planted a few years ago. Black eyed susans themselves don’t thrive at all in my garden.
The nasty one are the bindweeds, Convolvulus. They are perennials, sneaky and hard to dig out because by the time you see them they are intertwined in something you love. I like to think I am starving them to death when I follow them back to the base and yank. Morning glories, Ipomoea, are annuals and not so nasty. If they reseed and come up in a place unplanned you can always say it was part of your garden design.
I am still battling mistakes of my youth. We are still in our first home! A “friend” ( really I do love her) gave me Jerusalem artichokes many years ago. We don’t like them to eat and every year I dig out the &$@# plants. And then there are the Houtytunia that I bought at a nursery years ago. Recently I learned they are called the fish herb in Vietnam and are used in cooking. Yikes!
A favorite flowering vine of mine is the native passion flower, Passiflora incarnata. It’s agressive but controlable and has beautiful flowers that add lots of fragrance to the garden.
I actually grew several moonflowers in pots on my hot Texas apartment balcony. The blooms were as large as my head and the smell was wonderful. Unfortunately they do only bloom at night and I had to wake up after midnight to look at them. Loved them, but went with Bengal bougainvillea this summer, even better.
I am trying corn meal gluten in flowerbeds where i have self seeders to see if I can avoid this.