In May 2024, I filled a front bed on the southwest side of our house in NE Tallahassee with five small tickseed plants in four-inch pots from Native Nurseries. They grew gorgeously.

Both limelight hydrangeas and tickseed are sun-lovers, so this makes them perfect companions right from the start. But, you'll find that both these plants will tolerate some afternoon shade as well.

Golden tickseed, C. tinctoria, has bicolored yellow-topped ray flowers with brown bases. It was once rare but is now available from specialty seed growers and is planted by local governments along ...

The top performer, overall, was C. palustris ‘Summer Sunshine.’ This fall-blooming tickseed, and the other top performers, all spread through rhizomes, or underground stems.

Our Mystery Plant (Chipola tickseed, Coreopsis integrifolia) is actually a rare one, known from the Coastal Plain of South Carolina and Georgia, and over into the Florida panhandle. That’s it.

Florida’s state flower, tickseed, or Coreopsis leavenworthii, is in bloom now, putting on an impressive display at Big Flats Marsh. The annual wildflower show will last just a few more weeks.

All 12 species of tickseed (Coreopsis) native to Florida were appointed in the early 1990s to represent our state. As you may have guessed, the common name “tickseed” comes from the ...