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Echinacea:

(Common Name: Coneflower).

With growth in popularity of prairie style and naturalistic planting coupled with the release of a new range of colour breaks Echinaceas have come to the fore. 

They are neat plants forming clumps of tongue-shaped leaves and bearing rayed flowers with a large central cone on stiff, self supporting stems. The cones are filled with honey-scented nectar and attract every bee and butterfly in vicinity. They flower for a long period between July and October and go best in soil that has been enriched with compost. 

Echinaceas sometimes need a year to become established and produce good quality flower. A good way to encourage plants to establish is to cut back flowering stems to the ground in September - you lose some flowers but the plants should bulk up more quickly.

All those we sell are very hardy unlike some of the new, coloured cultivars flooding the market - read our more about our views on hardiness and getting plants through their first winter in our Garden Diary entry for September 2009

Echinacea purpurea Rubinstern ("Ruby Star"): Larger and more deeply coloured flowers than the species. Tends to grow a bit taller (2ft 6in to perhaps 3ft in very rich soils). Flowers July - September. 

RHS Award of Garden Merit

Seen here in front of Leucanthemum x.superbum "Phyllis Smith"