Purple Coneflower

Choose the easy-to-grow and popular prairie native, the Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) is a wildflower that really delivers! Coneflowers produce large, showy pinkish-purple, daisy-like flowers with a darker pincushion-like center cone. Smart landscapes rely on rugged, low-maintenance native perennials that come back year after year and produce long-lasting blooms all season long!

You'll love watching butterflies and wonderful Goldfinch birds flit from flower to flower, and so will your friends and family. Hummingbirds and other beneficial pollinators will also visit your garden adding to the spectacular show! Make sure you have seating nearby, you'll want to watch this "Nature Television" show of your very own!

Snip some blooms for your bouquets and enjoy their long-lasting beauty indoors and out! Then when fall rolls around, watch as the songbirds fly in! Birds love to pluck the seeds out of the spikey seed heads that stick around for fall and winter interest!

Planting and Application:

These are fantastic sun garden plants and shine in the light all day long without fading or wilting away! Any xeric landscape, Rock Garden, mixed perennial border, or Cottage garden needs these long-lasting flowers! Coneflowers do double duty when it comes to benefiting wildlife.

Ideal for prairie and wildflower restoration, meadows, and pollinator gardens, Purple Coneflowers have deep roots that won't need much of your attention once established! Found growing native throughout a wide swath of USDA growing zones 4 to 9, few areas of the country are too much for these tough plants!

Plant these in long drifts of gentle zig-zags in front of larger shrubs to create a very natural look in your backyard. Coneflowers pair beautifully to create a restful oasis with other cool-toned full-sun perennials, such as False Indigo, Butterfly Bush, Salvia, or Russian Sage. Underplant with Ajuga groundcover to complete the look.

Or, choose to partner with other rough textured native favorites such as Black-Eyed Susan or Blanket Flower. For the best look possible, plant in clusters of odd-numbered groups of 3, 5, 7, or 9. No room? Pot one up in a container in the sun with good drainage!

Next, layer in a fine textured ornamental grass, such as Maiden Grass or Prairie Dropseed and you'll achieve a visually appealing combination that works from the late spring through fall.

Well known for their nectar and pollen resources, as well as their wildlife draw, folks are learning how medicinal these native Echinacea plants are for preventing and treating colds and flu as well as many other conditions! So include these double-duty plants in your herb gardens, kitchen gardens, and vegetable gardens where the bees that visit help benefit all your plants!

• Rosy Pinkish-Purple Petals & Darker Spikey Centers
• Coarse, Pointed Green Leaves
• Hardy Native Wildflower
• Butterfly Nectar Source & Bold Bouquet Addition
• Well Branched Tall Wildflowers
• Pollinator & Perennial Gardens, Native Habitat & Prairie Gardens!

#ProPlantTips for Care:

Needing full sun for the most blooms and the strongest stems, this herbaceous perennial adapts to drought, moist soil, heat, humidity, and poor soil. These natives had to tolerate it all in the prairies of the US, and your landscape will benefit from their resilience!

For best results, provide a well-drained organic soil with a regular supply of moisture for the first year in your garden. After their first year, these plants become mostly self-sufficient and only need supplemental watering during extreme drought conditions to keep them blooming and stress-free. A 3-4 inch deep layer of arborist mulch chips will greatly benefit their roots and health and planting with Nature Hills Root Booster will set their root system up for life with symbiotic support.

Deer seems to leave this plant alone. Deadhead during the summer to encourage new blooms until fall and only prune your plants back in the autumn if there is any trace of powdery mildew, discarding the trimmings in your waste bin. Leave the seedheads up in the autumn for the birds and for winter interest, but trim the entire plant back in the early spring.

• Full Sun Perennial
• Must Have Well-Drained Soil
• Moderate to Low Moisture Needs - Drought Tolerant
• Extremely Adaptable & Hardy
• Deer Resistant

Hardy, bold, beautiful, the Purple Coneflower is one of our most easily recognized and beneficial prairie native wildflowers and you'll enjoy all its benefits in your garden when you order today from Nature Hills Nursery!