{"id":82,"date":"2008-03-02T05:53:00","date_gmt":"2008-03-02T13:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/garden\/?p=82"},"modified":"2015-11-24T07:33:24","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T15:33:24","slug":"coneflower-crazy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/coneflower-crazy\/","title":{"rendered":"Coneflower Crazy"},"content":{"rendered":"

CONEFLOWER CRAZY
\n<\/font><\/font><\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I am having a crisis.\u00a0 The plant breeders and nurserymen of this world are conspiring to drive me crazy and they have just about succeeded.\u00a0 Unlike all those medical and psychological conditions that you hear about on television–RLS, GERD, SAD–there is no pharmaceutical remedy for my problem.\u00a0 It doesn’t even have initials yet, but it’s making me tear my hair out in chunks.\u00a0 For convenience sake I am going to christen it ECS, for Echinacea Confusion Syndrome.\u00a0 You might also call it CI for Coneflower Insanity.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Back in the day–say, fifteen years ago–if you wanted a coneflower you bought Echinacea purpurea or purple coneflower.\u00a0 It was the only choice available to most people and it was a good one.\u00a0 Purple coneflower is a tough, native perennial that grows about three feet tall.\u00a0 It’s a member of the Compositae or daisy family and the flowers look like big purple daisies with large, cone-shaped centers.\u00a0 Purple coneflower is easy to care for, doesn’t mind a bit of dryness and tends to self seed.\u00a0 It’s also a wonderful cut flower.\u00a0\u00a0 It doesn’t smell like much, but butterflies love it and birds are drawn to those cone-shaped seed heads.\u00a0 In my opinion, any plant that attracts the gorgeous checkered fritillary butterfly and the colorful, perky goldfinch is pretty close to perfect. <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That is why I am not a plant breeder.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Plant breeders look at something like the purple coneflower and ask themselves why it can’t be taller or shorter or more floriferous.\u00a0 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.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 These considerations keep breeders awake at night, leading them to do the kind of work that has given me ECS.\u00a0 Since there is no cure, I have to treat it with a homemade remedy that involves extended catalog thumbing, followed by long periods of calculator manipulation and large doses of retail therapy.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 By my count, the major retail plant catalogs list over forty Echinacea species, hybrids and cultivars, not counting collections.\u00a0 To deal with this you can either limit yourself to one or two catalogs or figure out in advance what you want.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 You can always order good old purple coneflower.\u00a0 But suppose you want something that looks like a souped-up version of the species, with bigger, more numerous flowers and upturned petals?\u00a0 Some of the best choices might be ‘Ruby Star’, which is sometimes offered under its original German name, Rubinstern, or its offspring, ‘Ruby Giant’.\u00a0 Other good picks include ‘Merlot’, ‘Fatal Attraction’, ‘Magnus’, ‘Prairie Splendor’ and ‘Primadonna’.\u00a0 To get the look of Echinacea purpurea, plus the shorter stature that works better for small spaces and containers, try: ‘Kim’s Knee High’, ‘Mars’, ‘Pixie Meadowbright’, ‘Liliput’ or ‘Elton Knight’.\u00a0 <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

All of the preceding varieties have the characteristic purple flowers of the species, though in some cases the purple may be tinged with rose.\u00a0 The only way to be sure is to read the catalog copy carefully or go to the garden center at the appropriate time and see plants in bloom.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For lovers of double-petaled, purple-rose varieties, retailers offer ‘Pink Double Delight’, ‘Razzmatazz’ and ‘Double Decker’.\u00a0 ‘All That Jazz’ is a purple coneflower with quilled or partially rolled petals.\u00a0 <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 White is always a good bet in the garden, and breeders have come up with some lovely white coneflowers including ‘White Swan,’ ‘Virgin’, ‘Kim’s Mophead’ and ‘Fragrant Angel’, which, as the name suggests, has a pleasant fragrance.\u00a0‘ Jade’ also has white flowers, but with greenish tips.\u00a0 Some of the white varieties have a slight greenish cast.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 If you want coneflowers that are more green than white, try ‘Coconut Lime’, ‘Green Jewel’ or ‘Green Envy’, which features petals that start out green and end up mauve. <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The biggest news in Echinacea breeding in the last few years has been about fragrant cultivars in unusual colors.\u00a0 The leading breeder in this category is Richard Saul of Itsaul Nursery in Georgia, who has done extensive hybridizing, especially with crosses between Echinacea purpurea and a yellow-flowered species, Echinacea paradoxa.\u00a0 Some of his new varieties, sold as the Big Sky\u00e2\u201e\u00a2 Series, include: the yellow ‘Sunrise’, gold ‘Harvest Moon’, peach-toned ‘Summer Sky’ and the dwarf magenta ‘After Midnight’.\u00a0 Other unusually colored varieties include: the orange-russet ‘Tiki Torch’, from Oregon’s Terra Nova Nurseries, ‘Art’s Pride’, developed at the Chicago Botanic Garden and ‘Mango Meadowbright’, also from the Chicago program. <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The list of available Echinacea goes on and on.\u00a0 Retail suppliers abound, though color selection can be a problem due to the limitations of color reproduction in catalogs and on the Internet.\u00a0 A few good sources that offer free print catalogs include: White Flower Farm, P.O. Box 50, Route 63, Litchfield, Connecticut 06759, (800) 503-9624, <\/font><\/font>www.whiteflowerfarm.com<\/font><\/a>; Wayside Gardens, 1 Garden Lane, Hodges, SC 29695, (800) 213-0379, <\/font>www.waysidegardens.com<\/a>; and <\/font>Song Sparrow Perennial Farm, 13101 E. Rye Road, Avalon, Wisconsin 53505, (800) 553-3715, <\/font>www.songsparrow.com<\/font><\/a>. <\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CONEFLOWER CRAZY \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I am having a crisis.\u00a0 The plant breeders and nurserymen of this world are conspiring to drive me crazy and they have just about succeeded.\u00a0 Unlike all those medical and psychological conditions that you hear about on television–RLS, GERD, SAD–there is no pharmaceutical remedy for my problem.\u00a0 It doesn’t even have initials … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,2,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-interest","category-spring","category-summer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1698,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82\/revisions\/1698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}