Considering what a wet growing season we had last year it’s probably not wise to make the final call on some of the new cultivars I tried. With that in mind, I can say that I was not particularly impressed with Coreopsis ‘SunKiss’.
The plants grow 12 to 14 inches tall and wide and prefer full sun. They were very easy to sprout from seed. I tucked a few plants into one of my flowerbeds, and put several others in a planter.
They bloomed early and the plants stayed healthy and well-behaved all summer long (no turning brown and drying up like some coreopsis, calliopsis and cosmos plants tend to do later in the summer). But the “wow” factor just wasn’t there.
Even toward the end of the season the plants were still rather small and compact. They didn’t fill the planter or their space in the flowerbed, and the number of flowers was disappointing. I deadheaded all of the plants throughout the summer, and the ones in the planter got fertilizer once every two weeks. That didn’t seem to make a difference in flower production.
While this cultivar could just be the victim of rough growing conditions (so much rain!), it didn’t make the cut for this year’s flowerbeds.