One of my favorite plants this time of year is Melampodium. It is almost three feet tall, and the plants are covered in beautiful yellow flowers. This neighbor from south of the border is sometimes known as cushion zinnia here in America.
In Mexico, this plant is a perennial, but here in Tennessee it is an annual. They die at the first hint of frost. These sunny vellow daisies prefer full sun, warm weather, and good drainage but can tolerant poor, dry soils.
The plants have very dense foliage with a mound shape. The foliage itself is a very bright green with rough hairy, pointed leaves. The one inch, daisy-like flowers, cover the plant all summer. The yellow in the Melampodium is a clean, clear yellow with no hint of orange so that it looks great growing alongside blue flowers.
Melampodium is a cinch to grow from seed. You can sow directly in the garden after all danger of frost in the early spring, or you can start them indoors eight weeks prior to outdoor planting. This tidy little plant allows the yellow flowers to drop away quickly and cleanly as they fade, leaving behind only a calyx ring of little brown seeds. No dead heading is necessary. Cushion Zinnias will continue to grow in an ever widening globe shape expanding up to three feet wide.
They will take over smaller nearby plants. They can self-seed but never where you want them. I always find myself digging or pulling them up from the pathway between beds or the surrounding area. They have a long taproot but it you are diligent, they can be transplanted. They also do well in containers, the larger the pot the better.
When I first started gardening, I planted Melampodium that I had bought from a local nursery. Inever had any luck in getting it to self-sow. I had a friend who was enjoying great returns from her plants. In fact, she treated them like a thug plant and was always pulling them up, being surprised at where the birds or wind had sowed them.
I expressed an interest in having some of her cushion zinnias and she asked that I wait until fall. After the first hard frost she brought me a large trash bag filled with dead Mclampodium. After seeing the quizzical look on my face she said, “Just shake them out wherever you want plants next year”. Naturally, I let them sit in the garage for another three weeks. Guilt finally caught up with me, and I took the trash bag of dead plants out into the gardens.
She was correct. Late the next spring I had a profusion of lime green plants sprouting. I was not sure at first what they were, but the green was a different color from my usual assortment of weeds. Fast forward ten years. My friend has moved twice since then so this year I got the great privilege of returning a trash bag full of dead plants to her so that she can again enjoy this sunny yellow puff with bright green leaves.
