Echinacea 'Pale Purple Coneflower'

This plant has a beautiful, whimsical feel and plenty of grace. It is so easy to grow and will flower for months. If you can gather a group of them together, they are nothing short of sensational.

Echinacea keeps on giving, with months of flowers as well as viable seed for sowing. The narrow, soft pink petals radiate from the mounded, bronze cone.

Echinacea flowers are excellent for cutting as they last well in a vase, and can be dried. While the flower season is already quite impressive, cutting blooms and/or deadheading will help to promote more flowers and extend the bloom season (Jan – Mar). Alternatively you can cut it back to half after the first bloom, add some fertiliser and enjoy a second, shorter season into autumn.

You can even choose to allow the flower heads of Echinacea pallida to stay on through winter, as the seed pods will remain decorative right to the end. The hairy leaves grow towards the base of the plant.

Echinacea grows best in full sun. They prosper in a well drained soil that is moderately fertile to humus rich. Water to establish, then only if rainfall is low. Echinacea plants become dry tolerant as they establish.

Echinacea plants are popularly known as Coneflowers. They are native to Eastern and Central North America.