Helenium

I think I wrote last year that Helenium is my favourite fall flower.  It's one of those surprising flowers that looks better from below that from above, and it's fairly new in our garden.

Maybe part of what I like is just the colour, because we have so many yellow flowers in the garden just now; a flash of orange or red is really noticeable.

It's actually a mostly yellow flower from above.  Last year it was five feet tall; this year it's only 3.  I hope it's not going to die out, but I put it down to the extremely dry month we've had.

This is the whole patch we have in the garden, offset nicely by the purple Phlox.

So I had to lie down on my elbows and look look upwards to get these pictures.  It's a stunningly different flower from below.

The flower centre starts out green, but opens up to a raised golden-brown.

And eventually, this interesting pattern of dark brown with golden squiggles!  It's one of the nicest additions to our garden in recent years.