• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Home Garden Joy
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Start Here
    • Seed Starting
    • Composting Basics
    • Vegetable Gardening
    • Growing Fruit
    • Growing Herbs
  • Recipes
    • Canning and Food Preservation
    • Vegetarian Meals
    • Salad Recipes
    • Soup Recipes
    • Dinner Recipes
    • Dessert Recipes
  • Books & Classes
    • Classes
    • Books
    • Books for Christian Herbalists
  • About
    • Advertise
    • Awards and Accolades
    • Privacy Policy

Growing Coneflowers

July 7, 2013 by Jeanne

Growing coneflowers – purple coneflowers or Echinacea as they’re properly called – gives me a great deal of joy. These native perennials love hot, dry weather. And because they’re native to North America, they’re perfectly suited to many garden types. Growing coneflowers is easy in most gardens!
Growing Coneflower

Five years ago, I purchased three packages of seeds from the Parks catalog. I added two packages of seeds in the following years. The result is a garden filled with coneflowers – purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea), but also white and yellow.  I have three different shades of purple, the classic “Purpurea”, “Cherry Brandy” and one that came with a mixed package of seeds that loves it and continues to reseed.

coneflowers

Every coneflower in my garden came from that little seed collection planted years ago. Growing coneflowers is easy in most gardens.

Coneflower loves the hot, dry weather here in south central Virginia. As a native perennial plant, it thrives in the local conditions. The butterflies love it, so it adds to my butterfly gardens. The birds also love to perch on the tall, rocket-shaped spires and nibble at the seeds. Goldfinches seem particularly fond of it.

I originally planted a border of coneflower around the island bed in the center of the lawn, but the coneflower had other ideas. Over the years, it has reseeded abundantly, producing many plants that have filled the bed with flowers. I think coneflower is one of the easiest plants to grow, and with just a little care and luck, you can fill a flower garden with their cheerful blossoms.

Growing Coneflowers

How to Grow Coneflower

Coneflower is easy to start from seed. I start my coneflower indoors, under the plant lights, approximately six to eight weeks before the last frost date. Use a sterile seed starting mixture and a dome to maintain humidity. Once the plants have several sets of leaves, they can be moved outdoors.

Coneflower prefer a light, loamy soil, but will do just fine in clay if given time to extend their deep tap roots into the earth. They prefer full sun but will also tolerate partial shade. Their native habitat is prairies and meadows; if you can recreate that type of atmosphere for your coneflowers, they’ll reward you with abundant blooms.

Coneflower doesn’t need to be divided like other perennials. You can translate the volunteers, or self-seeded plants, if they grow in areas where you don’t want them. Try to do this early in the spring and water the plants well after transplanting. Their deep tap root doesn’t like to be disturbed and may need several weeks or months to recover from transplanting.

You can use Echinacea as a cut flower, a border plant, a cottage garden flower or as part of a butterfly garden flower. Seeds can be collected in the fall or after the seed head dries out. If you do collect and store seeds, store them in envelopes or paper sacks, nice and dry, in a dark, cool location.

As you can see from my pictures here, in just a few short years, a little invested into the purchase of good quality seeds can yield a beautiful garden. Give coneflowers enough light, water and time, and you’ll look like you have a green thumb even if you kill plastic plants.

Coneflowers: A Few Facts about Echineacea or Purple Coneflowers

  • Coneflowers are native to the prairies of the United States and Canada
  • They grow well in garden zones 5 to 8
  • “Magnus” is one type of coneflower that is hardy to zone 3 (northern Maine/Canada)
  • They attract birds (who eat their seeds) and butterflies (who love their nectar).
  • Needs full sun to partial sun.
  • Can be planted in a wide range of soil types including clay, clay loam
  • Heat tolerant
  • Drought tolerant
  • Bothered by very few pests.

Gallery of Purple Coneflower Pictures

Click on any photo to see a close up. All pictures taken by Jeanne Grunert and were photographed in my garden.

Growing coneflowers is easy….
Purple coneflower is also called Echinacea purpurea.
Coneflowers are usually purple but come in many other shades.

As the flowers age, the center takes on a “cone” shape and the petals point down.
Field of purple coneflower in my garden.
Echinacea “purpurea” and Echinacea “White Swan” in my garden.

White coneflowers.
Butterflies love coneflower.
A field of coneflowers!

Yellow coneflowers.

Coneflowers once grew in prairie meadows.

Jeanne
Jeanne

Jeanne Grunert is a certified Virginia Master Gardener and the author of several gardening books. Her garden articles, photographs, and interviews have been featured in The Herb Companion, Virginia Gardener, and Cultivate, the magazine of the National Farm Bureau. She is the founder of The Christian Herbalists group and a popular local lecturer on culinary herbs and herbs for health, raised bed gardening, and horticulture therapy.

Tweet
Share
Pin
Share
0 Shares

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: growing coneflowers

Previous Post: « Can You Really Have Too Much Rain?
Next Post: Growing Organic Peaches »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Anonymous

    June 24, 2014 at

    Is it too late to grow them now in early summer?

  2. Jeanne Grunert

    June 25, 2014 at

    I don’t think so. Start them in pots, and transplant them in early fall, at least 8 weeks before the first frost date. That will give them some time to establish good roots. I suggest “babying” them through the summer though – plenty of water! Good luck. I just transplanted a bunch I had growing in pots.

Trackbacks

  1. July in the Garden - Home Garden Joy says:
    July 7, 2017 at

    […] The color scheme in bloom at this time of year is beautiful purple, white, and yellow.  Purple coneflower, yarrow, nepeta, salvia, and butterfly bush; white daisies, white coneflower, and butterfly bush; […]

Primary Sidebar

Let’s Connect!

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • YouTube

Featured

logo of the american horticulture society

Home Garden Joy was featured by the American Horticultural Society on #plantchat.

My Books on Amazon

cover of plan and build a raised bed garden

Visit my author page on Amazon to find all of my fiction and gardening books.

Herbal Academy Teachers

Footer

a browned overcooked coconut bar on a blue flowered plate

Recipe Fail – Coconut Bars

Each weekend, I dig out my favorite cookbook – the Fannie Farmer Cookbook, 13th Edition. I flip through the pages, skimming the recipes, checking to see if I have the ingredients to make those that catch my eye. And then, I make the recipe, usually late Sunday afternoon after all the chores are done. It’s…

Read More

peach tree cuttings in a pot on a windowsill

Propagating Peach Trees from Softwood Cuttings

We decided that propagating peach trees from softwood cuttings was the way to go when we couldn’t find the variety we wanted at the store this past week. The best eating peach we’ve ever grown here at Seven Oaks Farm is “Red Haven.” It was recommended by our neighbor, a man whose family has farmed…

Read More

soul in a yellow mug against pine panelling

Made From Scratch Chicken Vegetable Soup Recipe

This is the best made-from-scratch chicken vegetable soup recipe you’ll ever taste. It’s a favorite of my family and I’m betting it will quickly become a favorite of your family’s, too. As part of my ongoing quest to test and taste every recipe in the Fannie Farmer Cookbook 100th Edition, I’ve made the Vegetable Soup…

Read More

A loaf of bread on a plate

Water Bread – Recipe Review

Once you make water bread, you’ll never eat store bought white bread again. In fact, you won’t be able to look at a loaf of “white bread” from the market and consider it bread, in any sense of the word, after you’ve taken a bite of the real thing. Hot. Crunchy crust. Tender, flaky, soft…

Read More

Copyright © 2022 Home Garden Joy on the Foodie Pro Theme