Last week I participated in an annual ritual of spring that involved a lengthy pilgrimage, followed by acts of homage at impressive shrines in the company of hundreds of other pilgrims. At the end of my journey, I returned home footsore, but spiritually renewed.
The scene of this religious devotion was, of course, the Philadelphia Flower Show. Its theme this year was “America’s National Parks”, which provided inspiration for the large and small exhibition gardens. Most of us have visited one or more national parks, but unless we work for the U.S. Park Service the majority of us have no idea how many there are.
Fortunately the show designers were better informed. From the recreation of a burned- out section of Yellowstone National Park to the floral wonders of an orchid-strewn Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, the range was enormous.
Orchids aside, it was not as flower-filled as some past shows. This is predictable, because national parks are generally about magnificent landscapes, rather than lush gardens. At the Flower Show, trees, shrubs, atmospheric decorations (like bald eagles made of natural materials) and artful hardscaping provided the sense of each place, with a special emphasis on native plants. There was nary a rose to be found in the entire Philadelphia Convention Center. This is not to say that flowers were absent; they were just not quite as plentiful or flashy as in past Flower Shows.
The one flowering plant type that stood out was coneflower or Echinacea, a native prairie plant that has become incredibly fashionable over the past two decades. Coneflowers appeared in a good number of the display gardens, symbolizing natural, unforced all-American beauty.
Back in the day–say, thirty years ago–if you wanted a coneflower you bought Echinacea purpurea or purple coneflower. It was the only widely-available choice and it was a good one. In its natural state, purple coneflower grows about three feet tall. In keeping with its membership in the Compositae or daisy family, the flowers look like big purple daisies with large, cone-shaped centers. Purple coneflower is easy to care for, doesn’t mind a bit of dryness and tends to self seed. It’s also a wonderful cut flower. The only downside is that it doesn’t smell like much. Despite that, butterflies love it and after the blooms have faded, birds are drawn to those cone-shaped seed heads. In my opinion, any plant that attracts the gorgeous checkered fritillary butterfly and the colorful, perky goldfinch is pretty close to perfect.
But “perfection” is a relative term.
Plant breeders look at something like the purple coneflower and ask themselves why it can’t be taller or shorter or more floriferous. They think about desirable characteristics and wonder if the plain old coneflower could smell better or bloom in an array of interesting colors and sprout double petals or variegated leaves.
As the result of all that thinking and subsequent plant breeding, the major retail plant catalogs list over forty Echinacea species, hybrids and cultivars, not counting collections. To deal with this you can either limit yourself to one or two catalogs or figure out in advance what you want.
The biggest news in Echinacea breeding in the last few years has been about fragrant cultivars in unusual colors. The leading breeders in this category have done extensive varietal selection and hybridizing, the latter often involving crosses between Echinacea purpurea and a yellow-flowered species, Echinacea paradoxa. As is the current custom, new coneflowers are frequently introduced in themed groups or series. If you are looking for a nose-tickling coneflower, try petite Butterfly ‘Julia’, which features bright orange petals, or the taller orange-russet ‘Tiki Torch’, from Oregon’s Terra Nova Nurseries. Either of these combines well with golden, spice-scented ‘Harvest Moon’, part of the Big Sky coneflower series. For a fragrant white, try ‘White Swan’ or ‘Fragrant Angel’, a pristine representative of the Prairie Pillars series. Lovers of the traditional purple-pink coneflowers will want to try ‘Gemini Pink’, with its broad, semi-flattened cone.
This trend towards fragrance was evident in the coneflowers at the Philadelphia show. One lovely mass planting of coneflowers featured a multitude of plants with blossoms in many shades of orange, peach, yellow, gold, purple and white. While not as flashy as previous years’ displays of roses, snapdragons and delphiniums, the coneflowers had a simple allure. If butterflies and bees had been admitted to the main Exhibition Hall, I am sure they would have been as enchanted as the horticultural pilgrims who gathered around these descendants of prairie stalwarts.
The list of available Echinacea varieties and hybrids goes on and on. A number of fragrant varieties will be appearing on plant palates at a nursery near you this spring. A few good sources that offer free print catalogs include: Bluestone Perennials, 7211 Middle Ridge Road, Madison, OH 44057, (800) 852-5243, www.bluestoneperennials.com. Klehm’s Song Sparrow Farm and Nursery, 13101 E. Rye Road, Avalon, Wisconsin 53505, (800) 553-3715, www.songsparrow.com.