Helenium Fuego

Helenium 'Fuego', also known as Hybrid Autumn Sneezeweed, is a recent Dutch creation, abundantly flowering with variegated daisies in yellow, red, orange, and copper, which truly set the garden on fire at the end of the season. With their flamboyant petals illuminated by a golden halo surrounding a brown and satin cone, these flowers create stunning bouquets and enhance the autumn colours in the garden. It is a bushy and compact variety that does not require staking. It is also a hardy and reliable perennial, easy to grow in the sun, in moist and well-drained soil.

Heleniums are perennials from the Asteraceae family, native to North America, where they mostly grow near marshes. The 'Fuego' cultivar is derived from the autumnal Helenium species, a perennial with very richly coloured flowers and vigorous growth. 'Fuego' is a compact and highly floriferous variety. It has a stout and bushy habit, with branched stems reaching 50 to 60cm (20 to 24in) in height. The brightly coloured leaves, lanceolate in shape with smooth margins, are arranged alternately along the stems. From August to October, a large number of flower heads tirelessly bloom at the top of the stems. These inflorescences resemble large 8cm (3in) diameter daisies. In the centre, the shiny cone is coloured orange-brown and gradually gives way to yellow stamens. At the periphery, multicoloured florets in flamboyant tones fade harmoniously to a more coppery hue. This almost unreasonable flowering announces with fanfare the beginning of autumn flowers and foliage.

The 'Fuego' Helenium is a robust and hardy plant that is never sickly. It appreciates ordinary soils and sunny exposures. Easy to grow it blooms equally well in slopes, beds, and containers on the terrace. Despite all these qualities, Heleniums remain rare in gardens. Perhaps because their warm tones announce autumn a little too quickly, while the garden and the gardener are still trying to hold onto the last summer blooms; yet they are the ideal complement to asters. 'Fuego', in combination with Rudbeckias, pairs well with autumnal plants like Heucheras and Helianthus, but it can also be associated with a deciduous spindle tree, whose foliage ignites with the first cold, or with the sumptuous dyer's madder. In a different setting, the felted foliage of Stachys or salvias greatly enhances the warm hue of this flowering.