Therefore, garden centers have to pay very high license fees, which they pass on to the end customer. However, these beauties don’t come cheap as breeders have to protect all the innovations in their range. ‘Green Jewel’ unfurls its sepal-shaped, light green petals around a dark green center. The variety ‘Sunrise’ has up to 4.72 inch large flowers in a delicate light yellow with a green dome. This color gradient and their stable stems makes them particularly suitable as cut flowers. The white-green petals change color from the center to the tips from pink to a delicate red shade. ‘Green Envy’ is an unusual sight among Purple Coneflowers. The variety ‘Tomato Soup’ is a vibrant tomato red, it was awarded 2 out of 3 stars in the “Staudensichtung”. The large flowers of the ‘Tiki Torch’ variety radiate like burning torches in pure orange. The flowers appear as early as June and even give off a slight fragrance. You can also harvest a few of the fall flowers to dry and make herbal teas that help battle winter colds from the coneflower petals.Equally vibrant in orange-red is the pompom-like double-flowered Echinacea ‘ Hot Papaya’. In late summer to fall, stop deadheading spent blooms so that birds can eat the seed through the fall and winter. Always cut the spent flower stem back to a set of leaves or a new flower bud so you are not left with odd looking bare stems all over the plant. In this case, prune the spent flower and stem back to the new blooms. Oftentimes, new blooms will appear at leaf nodes before the top flower finishes wilting. Most coneflowers produce several flowers per stem and will rebloom without any deadheading. You can also cut the stem all the way back to the plant crown if it is a variety that only produces one flower on each stem. To deadhead spent blooms, follow the stem down from the flowers to the first set of leaves and snip just above these leaves. Sanitize pruners in a solution of rubbing alcohol or bleach and water before pruning to eliminate the risk of spreading any diseases from plant to plant. While many annuals and perennials can simply be pinched back by snapping the spent flower head off, Echinacea stems are too thick and coarse to be pinched and require a clean, sharp snip with pruners. When pruning or deadheading any plant, always use clean, sharp pruning shears. These newer hybrids are also not of much interest to birds, either. Blooms from mid-summer to fall on 24-36' stems. Charming 5' purple daisy-like blooms with orange-brown raised centers. Newer hybrids usually do not produce viable seed and will not self sow. Practically indestructible because they are sub-zero hardy and withstand heat, grow in dry locations and love poor soil. Although it does not reseed quite as aggressively as Rudbeckia, older varieties of coneflower can reseed themselves. You can also deadhead Echinacea to prevent it from reseeding itself all over the garden. So when asked about deadheading Echinacea plants, I usually recommend only deadheading spent blooms through the blooming period to keep the plant looking beautiful, but leaving spent flowers in late summer-winter for the birds. When they are done blooming, their seed covered “cones” provide valuable food from late summer to winter for many birds (such as goldfinches, chickadees, blue jays, cardinals, and pine siskins). When in bloom, Echinacea attracts and feeds bees and a variety of butterflies (such as Fritillaries, Swallowtails, Skippers, Viceroy, Red Admiral, American Lady, Painted Lady, and Silvery Checkerspot). I often suggest coneflower, which tolerates poor soil, excessive heat, drought, full sun to part shade, and will bloom continuously whether you deadhead it or not.Ĭoneflowers are sounding pretty perfect now, aren’t they? It gets better. Instead, we select easy, low maintenance plants that look like we spent hours in the garden when, in fact, their care only requires a few minutes here or there. Though most of us would love to spend all day, every day, in our gardens, real life gets in the way. When I suggest coneflowers to a customer, I am often asked “do you need to deadhead coneflowers?”. Also known as purple coneflower, Echinacea has grown wildly and contently for hundreds of years without human “help,” and it can grow for many years in your landscape or flower beds without any maintenance. Long before settlers came to North America, Native Americans grew and used Echinacea as an herbal remedy for colds, coughs, and infections. Native to the U.S., Echinacea has been a favorite wildflower and valuable herb for centuries.
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