Coreopsis Honeybunch Red & Gold

The Coreopsis 'Honeybunch Red & Gold' is a robust flowering perennial that will delight you all summer long with its flamboyant red and yellow suns. With its fine dark green foliage, it is undemanding and hardy, and will brighten up your sunny rockeries in any light and well-drained soil. It only requires a bit of deadheading to stay in top shape and also performs excellently in pots.

The 'Red & Gold' coreopsis belongs to the large family of Asteraceae and is part of a genus widely used in gardens: it includes both large species (Coreopsis grandiflora) and small rock plants. These species are mainly native to bright clearings and meadows in North America, where they thrive on relatively poor but well-drained soils. They all produce lovely "sunflower-like" flowers, mostly in golden yellow tones, but more recently also in pale yellow, pink and red. The small species with narrow leaves have given rise to many hybrids that are not always very reliable: they fade after a few years or are sensitive to cold.

The 'Red & Gold' coreopsis is part of the 'Honeybunch' hybrid series, distinguished by its neat and regular dome-shaped habit. From June to October, it produces a mass of yellow flowers with a red base on a dense and compact shrub that does not exceed 25 cm (10in) in height and 40 cm (16in) in diameter. It spreads slowly through short rhizomes just below the soil surface.

Resistant and hardy, 'Red & Gold' will thrive in full sun in any slightly acidic to slightly alkaline soil, and it requires good drainage to develop properly: in heavy and waterlogged winter soil, its longevity will be greatly reduced. It tolerates summer drought once established. To achieve long and regular flowering, remember to remove faded flowers from time to time: this will stimulate the production of new flower buds, even in autumn if the weather permits. In overly rich soil, the plant may also become a bit floppy: trim the shrub in July to encourage branching and the formation of new flowers closer to the ground. Due to its compact size and undemanding nature, 'Red & Gold' coreopsis is also an excellent variety for container gardening.

You can plant it in rockeries, alongside small perennials that appreciate similar conditions such as Bertram Anderson lemon thyme, Caucasian rock cress Bakkely, mountain alyssum, or graceful grasses like Amethyst fescue.