Coneflowers once had a reputation for being short-lived – but not any more, says Graham Rice
It’s not so very long ago that there were only half a dozen varieties of echinacea on offer and all were selections of the American prairie perennial Echinacea purpurea, of which ‘Magnus’ was a favourite. Then American plant breeders got to work crossing purple- and white-flowered E. purpurea with a rarely seen yellow-flowered species, E. paradoxa. The result was plants with the large, broad-petalled flowers of E. purpurea in a range of bright and colourful tones created by genes of the yellow coneflower. A flood of them appeared on the market – and most of them died in their first winter.
The purple coneflower is a prairie plant with a deep tap root that reaches in search of moisture. The yellow coneflower is a plant of woodland edges, where its fibrous roots appreciate the rich leafy soil. Cross the two and the resulting plants had roots unsuited to both sets of conditions. In the garden, winter wet killed them.
Since then we’ve had 20 years of plant breeders focusing not only on improving flower form and colour, but also on root systems that are perennial in wet winters. So you can now buy modern echinacea varieties without worrying whether or not they’ll reappear in spring.
■ Position Best in full sun, in fertile, free-draining soil. Popular with bees, butterflies and moths.
■ Planting Leave undivided to develop into prolific clumps as divided pl
