In the Garden with Pat Rubin

Bee garden writer Pat Rubin writes about everything that grows, from flowers and trees to vegetables and lawns. Pat volunteered for several years as a Placer County Master Gardener and has written about gardening for many national and regional publications. In addition to gardening, she spends time raising and showing miniature horses and miniature donkeys.

In the Garden will include news, events, advice and other gardening tidbits. Pat will also answer reader questions.

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August 8, 2007

New colors for coneflowers

Gardeners may need to devise a new common name for a popular perennial, the purple coneflower (Echinacea). Famous for a spiky orange cone surrounded by narrow, pink, drooping petals, coneflowers can be seen in flower borders all over Sacramento. But now they aren’t only in shades of pink/purple/mauve anymore.

Hybridizers have tinkered with this native American stalwart of the perennial border, and now it comes in rosy-orange, golden, pure white, mango, raspberry pink and ruby red. Its new names reflect thenew colors: Sunrise, Sunset, Sundown, Harvest Moon, Ruby Star.

It’s the same tough, sun-loving plant, but in new colors. The new cultivars are a cross between two old species of coneflower, E. purpurea and E. paradoxa. They’ve been around for a few years, now, but had been quite expensive, often commanding prices as high as $15 for a small start. They’re still a bit pricey, but as more varieties have come on the market, prices have begun to tumble. Most nurseries now carry a selection of coneflower, including both new and old varieties. Park Seed Co. offers eight new varieties, including one with double pink petals.

Echinacea cultivars bloom from July on, sometimes even into early fall if you keep spent flowers cut away. They give the border a lift, a flash of brightness, a splash of color at the height of summer when most perennials are looking bedraggled. They stand up to all the sun Mother Nature can muster on a hot, California summer day.

My only disappointment with the new version of purple coneflower is that the petals of many of the new varieties aren’t as long and graceful as the old coneflower. Part of the allure of the coneflower, at least for me, was the way the petals hung inches below the spiny orange cone in the center of the flower. I find the petals on many of the new, colorful varieties are shorter, stubbier. They look like they aren’t quite finished, and I keep expecting them to grow longer as the plant matures. Still, I’ve planted several varieties in the garden, and, short petals or not, I’m drawn to them.

I guess simply calling them all coneflowers will do.

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