Growing Coneflowers for late summer colour
- Justin Deveau
- Apr 27, 2019
- 2 min read
Updated: Apr 28, 2019
Coneflowers (Echinacea)
Coneflowers are a late mid to late flowering summer plant that really adds colour to your garden. The tried and true Purple Coneflower is longer lived than its other variations, which you can find in a variety of colours such as brown, yellow, white and even green, and they really stand out when many other plants have finished their blooms for the season.
Growing Coneflowers
Coneflowers is the common name which are native to the US and can easily tolerate colder climates, surviving in zones 2 through 10. They are a herbaceous perennial that dies back over winter to start emerging again through spring. They prefer full sun, though they handle a bit of shade as long as they receive some light. Coneflowers prefer poor soil conditions but do enjoy a bit of compost and being fertilized throughout the summer.
The blooming period in mid to late summer right through to frost really helps make this plant one of the stars of the garden while many others are looking tired or whose blooms have been spent. You can leave their spent flowers to provide architecture throughout the winter, or cut back the flowering stems when they are spent. The foliage can be left to help provide additional protection for the crown over winter as it slips into dormancy. Be sure to layer on a blanket of snow whenever you get the chance to provide insulation from a cold winter.
Propagation Methods
Coneflowers can be grown easily by seeds naturally by waiting until they are ripe and sprinkling them on top of the soil throughout the garden in fall. These seeds require stratification (a cooling of the seeds) to germinate, so getting them spread out before winter hits will help ensure you have even more the following year.
They can also be divided every few years once the plant has matured. Simply dig out a healthy sized plant and slice it in half with a sharp blade like a shovel and re-plant your two (or more) new coneflowers into the garden.
Coneflowers come in a variety of colour choices and provide late summer interest through to the end of the season.
Top 5 Tips
Follow these suggestions to maximize your enjoyment of Coneflowers:
Grow coneflowers in full sun if you can, to maximize their size and blooms
Plant in groups of three (or other odd numbers), to provide an appealing impact of colour that can be seen from a distance
Have a few others planted in partial shade, to intentionally delay their bloom time to stretch out your enjoyment time
Feed every 10-14 days with a liquid seaweed fertilizer which will maximize growth
Leave many of the spent flower stems on to provide height and interest in the garden through winter as well as providing some food for the birds
Coneflowers are easy to grow and will stand up to the heat and dry conditions in any full sun garden.
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