Pest battle with Black-eyed Susan — and how I won

I had a serious problem with poor germination in compacted or clay soils on my Black-eyed Susan earlier this year. Caught it late and had to work hard to bring the plant back. The experience was frustrating but educational.

Now that it's healthy again I can fully appreciate self-seeding and naturalising without annual replanting, which is remarkable. I've repositioned it in a container with a meadow mix for a balcony and improved my attention to scarifying or scratching the soil before sowing for seed contact. cutting back meadow areas in autumn to remove thatch was the proof that the plant had fully recovered — genuinely beautiful. Moral of the story: inspect regularly and catch problems early.