Helenium Fancy Fan

Helenium 'Fancy Fan' is a recent variety of autumn sunflower, particularly bright, whose original flowering announces the end of summer with fanfare. The very curled yellow petals reveal their orange reverse. The peripheral florets are few in number, spaced apart, arranged in a fan around a large yellow to brown bulging heart. It is in late summer that these inflorescences resembling daisies appear, carried by sturdy stems that emerge from beautiful lanceolate foliage. It is a robust perennial, easy to grow in sunny and moist soil. It is ideal for making bouquets.

Natural varieties of Heleniums are perennials belonging to the Asteraceae family, native to North America; they are generally found around marshes. The 'Fancy Fan' cultivar offers a very bright colour and an unusual inflorescence. The upright habit of the plant is supported by stems reaching up to 1.10m (4ft) in height. The coloured leaves, of a medium green colour, lanceolate in shape and with smooth margins, are arranged alternately along the stems. During the months of July to September, a myriad of flowers appear at the top of the stems. Resembling daisies, the heads are composed of almost tubular outer florets, with a bicolour appearance, around a cone colored in brown gradually giving way to yellow stamens. It is when the sun highlights them that these colours are most astonishing.

The 'Fancy Fan' Helenium is a hardy and never sick plant. It appreciates ordinary soils and sunny exposures.  Easy to grow, it blooms well in slopes, flower beds, and large containers. Despite all these qualities, Heleniums remain rare in gardens. Perhaps because their warm tones announce autumn and the end of the beautiful days... This Helenium pairs very well with autumnal plants such as asters, Heucheras, perennial chrysanthemums or Rudbeckias, but it can also be associated with deciduous Euonymus with sublime foliage from the first cold spells. In a more Mediterranean atmosphere, the felted foliage of Stachys or salvias greatly enhance the warm hue of its flowering.