In the height of the summer, one of the most dependable flowers lending color to a garden is the purple coneflower (Echinacea purpera – from the Greek echinos, which means hedgehog).
The plant itself grows about a foot and a half tall. The flowers grow on sturdy stems ranging from a foot to five feet. The petals range of the purple coneflower from purple to lavender and the seed center is a large and orange-copper colored cone.However, the are white coneflowers, and some varieties are even orange.
This is a truly stunning plant in the late spring and throughout the summer. Drought-tolerant, it is adaptable to heat, poor soils and high humidity, although it does best in well-drained fertile soil. It can be grow in full sun or partial shade.
Coneflowers need to be divided about every four years in the fall. Coneflowers are members of the sunflower family (Compositae) and are native to North America, especially in the Great Plains areas.
There are three species of native coneflowers that have been given common names: the one most people picture when they think of coneflowers is the Purple Coneflower; Black Sampson (Echinacea angustifolia); and Pale Purple Coneflower (Echinacea pallida). A fourth species, Echinacea atrorubens actually has no common name.
The purple coneflower grows indigenously in the south and east (as far as Georgia) as well as on the eastern edges of the North American prairies.
Black Sampson (Echinacea angustifolia) is practically indistinguishable from its cousins, except that its petals are more pinkish and it generally grows on the western edges of the prairies. It is also known as the “narrow-leaf coneflower.”
Pale Purple Coneflower (Echinacea pallida) prefers upland prairies and ranges throughout Indiana and Wisconsin in the north and east, eastern Kansas and north Texas.
Echinacea atrorubens grows in a very narrow area from Topeka to Houston. Its leaves are not as rough or hairy as its the other species.
All the indigenous native plants are in danger, due to people harvesting the roots of the wild plants to make herbal remedies. Now, the plants are being raised commercially, which has slowed the threat of the plant disappearing altogether, although the threat has not been entirely erased.
Purple coneflowers bloom throughout the summer and into fall. The flowers make great flower arrangements during that time. In the winter, the petals eventually fall, leaving a striking brown-gold conehead, attached to a woody stem.
Goldfinches and other birds love to eat the seeds in winter, and offer birdwatchers an interesting perspective, hanging upside down on the bare coneheads, picking seeds from the centers.
Plant coneflowers in borders with other native plants, and specifically with Black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia) or naturalize them in drifts, along with Russian sage, yarrow, penstemons, and blue flax.
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