This colorful new selection, discovered at Bauer’s Forever Flowers in northwestern Pennsylvania, zone 5a, has overwintered very well since 2005 in the Bauer’s garden. It comes back so vigorously each year, they think it should be hardy to zone 4, but we’ll list it as a zone 5 just to be sure. ‘Route 66’ is a verticillata type of Coreopsis, so it has green, threadleaf foliage with branched stems and an upright habit to about two feet tall. From midsummer into mid-fall in zone 5, this plant produces large 2in yellow flowers with a blood red eye. The red pigment bleeds out onto the petals, becoming the dominant color in fall. Each flower has a slightly different pattern of yellow and red pigments.