Purple Cone Flower - Echinacea purpurea

**Durgan** · 08-14-2009, 10:59 AM

Purple Cone Flower - Echinacea purpurea
http://www.durgan.org/URL/?HERXF 14 August 2009 Purple Cone Flower - Echinacea purpurea

The clump gets larger every year. The flowers last for several weeks.

**Jerseygirl** · 08-22-2009, 11:19 PM

I have these in 3 of my gardens, one was a suprise. After I dug up the plant and moved it, 2 years later I got flowers in the area I had moved it from. I know you can make a nice tea from the cone, I have had the tea, but never the inclination to dry it and make it myself.

**Contrary Housewife** · 08-22-2009, 11:54 PM

Do you deadhead those? Mine look pretty bad right now and I wonder if I should cut the dead flowers off. My patch is plenty big enough, I'm not worried about it not coming back, but it could look less ragged. Does it help keep them flowering? We've got 8-10 weeks of warm weather left before it will get too cold.

**Durgan** · 08-23-2009, 05:47 AM

Originally Posted by Contrary Housewife

Do you deadhead those? Mine look pretty bad right now and I wonder if I should cut the dead flowers off. My patch is plenty big enough, I'm not worried about it not coming back, but it could look less ragged. Does it help keep them flowering? We've got 8-10 weeks of warm weather left before it will get too cold.

Usually the plant is left as is, until garden clean-up in the Fall. My clump is still relatively attractive; in spite, of the incessant rain. Maybe there is so much other ragged plants around that the cone flower doesn't stand out as being unattractive.

**gottadance** · 08-25-2009, 10:45 PM

Oh - absolutely don't cut off the head - the goldfinches eat the seeds and squirrels eat the entire heads. Deadheading is really bad for wildlife - you're not leaving them any seeds to munch on through winter. Besides, coneflower heads look really interesting in winter - they're a dark chocolate brown and they are sturdy so they stay up all winter and they are really pretty when they get a little coating of snow on the top.

**Contrary Housewife** · 08-25-2009, 10:49 PM

We've had some severe storms and a lot of mine are falling over or broken. I didn't know the birds ate them over the winter, so I will leave them.

**MomToTwoBoys** · 08-26-2009, 08:47 AM

A neighbor of mine has these and they are so beautiful. They actually tower over a lot of her other flowers and steal the spotlight. If I wasn't doing tomatoes next year in the front, I'd get some for myself.