This one has huge petals which appear in 2 rows on every single bloom. This is just one of my seedlings from last year which I selected. I like the smaller cone in this one too. The focus is on the huge petals!
A Few Favorites
Here's the plant. Check out how many buds this sucker has! This thing will be blooming a long time!
Here's the darkest blooming coneflower I've ever seen. I held it from last year's seedlings to try and get even darker. I believe there will be almost black coneflowers in the future!
Here's a 4-year-old Razzmatazz coneflower still going strong. This plant is at located in a very wet location. I'm shocked it keeps getting better each year. This is one of the best new coneflower plants on the market to me.
Here's a 6-year-old Pallida. Anyone who says coneflowers are short-lived perennials, has got to go! These plants should be long-lived or they aren't good Echinacea plants.
This message was edited May 28, 2009 10:36 AM
I kept this one because I like the petal shape. They also have white streaks in them at first. I think there's a chance to create one which keeps the streaks in it over the life of the bloom. There's something about this bloom form I like.
Here's one of my favorites of all my seed-grown plants! The blooms look like a water-color painting. They change colors over time. They start out yellow with streaks of orange, they then change to an orange-sherbet color and finish off a reddish pink color. The cone color is nice too.
Here's a red blooming Echinacea I had last year. I really liked this one. It wasn't the color of Tomato Soup....it was redder.
This one is my absolute favorite. I could have sold this one to a company, but I wasn't satisfied with the contract and decided not to sell it. It's a dwarf, white double. I like it because the petals don't hang down.
I like that one too. Do you have Baby White Swan? Just got it today ... after swearing off cones for a few years!
I didn't see Baby White Swan! Sounds cute. I'll have to look that one up. I swore I would try to stop ordering so many, but I love growing the different cultivars. They give me so much joy when they are good plants. Some of the new ones are not good plants, which is a shame.
It's supposed to be a short version of White Swan - there are even seeds available but I was too impatient.
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/152896/
echinaceamaniac, those are beautiful! I love the form on the first one. Wonderful!
Melanie
Thanks, Melanie. I'm going to try harder at making my plants better. It's fun and it keeps me from spending so much on plants that won't grow! LOL.
I love my razzamatazz. It hasn't bloomed yet this year, but here is a shot from last year.
Here is after midnight - again from last year. I love the dark cone and stem
pennefeather...After Midnight is growing for me too. It's the only Big Sky plant I recommend to any of my friends. It doesn't seem to be distorted like the others.
I think this may be because there wasn't as much demand for it and the tissue culture wasn't so stretched to the limit.
I love Razzmatazz too. I've heard others that don't like it because it's tall. However, it is a reliable plant that returns every single year. I rooted a cutting of mine last year and the new one is taller than the old one. LOL.
Somehow I missed this thread. Super nice photos maniac and pennefeather. The short white one is a "killer" with that yellow cone. With all the talk that's been going on about "Tomato Soup" and "Mac N Cheese" I think the appropriate name for your creation should be Echinacea "Fried Eggs".
Jon
Thanks, Jon. I posted these pictures so everyone could see that they can plant their own seeds and get various colors. You don't have to baby them as much either. They are tougher since you grew them from your own seeds. They aren't tissue cultured weaklings. I didn't plant thousands of seeds either. I picked about 10 seeds of each plant color and planted them. I got this variety in one season's worth of seeds. I didn't do anything like "embryo rescue" either. Lord knows I wouldn't know where to begin. LOL.
LOL. I've had kind of mixed results with Echinacea seeds that I planted late winter/early spring last year. They were my first attempts to grow from seed. II'm not even sure I planted them at the right time of year for my zone (zone 10). Here are the ones I tried and how many of the total came back this year:
Bravado 1 of 2
Magnus 1 of 2
Ozark(Yellow) 2 of 2
Pink Parasol 0 of 2
Primadonna White 1 of 1
Ruby Star 2 of 2
I just planted Echinacea "Amado" seeds about 2-3 weeks ago and 7 out of the 10 seeds germinated. One of my "Ozark" Echies just took a very sudden turn for the worse all in the last three days. The foliage on 1/3-1/2 of the plant has turned brown and dead looking so I removed as much of it as I could today. It may be because of all the rain we've had lately. It has rained here 13 days in a row now.
Jon
Jon - That Daconcil is handy for Paradoxa and Pallida. If I don't spray Pallida, the plant dies right before the blooms open! Seriously. I waited 2 years for blooms the first time and the plant died to the ground from rain. It came back the next year and I saw Daconcil on the shelf at Lowes and decided to give it a try. It worked perfectly. I've also been using it to root various cuttings like Hydrangeas. My cuttings were rotting so I took new ones and sprayed them with Daconcil. I now have 100% of them taking.
"Fried Eggs"
LOL, Jon - too cute :)
Perhaps I'll give Daconil a try. I really think it's been just too much rain lately (about 10 inches in the last two weeks). The issue seems to be more of a root rot issue I believe. At least all of the other Echinacea seem to be very OK...so far. I did spray my zinnias with Daconil twice in the past two weeks when they were perfectly healthy. I have started to see slight signs of mildew on a few leaves although I'm sure the plants have benefited a bit from using Daconil. I've removed that foliage as fast as I can so its just a "wait and see" thing. Here is my first bloom this morning on Echinacea "Primadonna White". This one was grown from seed last year and did over winter. It didn't look like it going to over winter, but then just took off in April.
Also a first bloom this spring on Echinacea "Hope" from this morning. This plant is beginning it's second year.
Jon
Jon,
i continue to be amazed at your ability to grow coneflowers in an area that they are not supposed to do well.
Thanks much for the kind words. I'm kind of "on a mission" to prove that some of the experts could possibly be wrong. I am doing the same thing with Bearded Iris which are not supposed to bloom here either. One online retailer even refused to sell them to me. She told me they don't sell their Iris to people in Florida. Anyway, here's a photo from this evening of my Iris bed. There are quite a few blooms on the way.
Jon
I love iris. I've been growing some variegated ones. They've not bloomed yet but the leaves look nice. Maybe they will surprise me with a bloom or two this year.
Have you tried Tennessee coneflowers? I have one that is different from all my other ones. It has more petals and a green cone! I'm going to start propagating it this year. I'll share some photos later.
Jon, could you tell me what makes Hope a special coneflower? I'm surprised it was released. I don't see anything that sets it apart from other plants.
This message was edited May 31, 2009 7:15 PM
I love iris also Belle. I just had to give them a shot down here even though most everything I read told me to forget about it. All the iris I grow are the reblooming varieties. You just get more "bang for the buck" on these varieties as they tend to bloom at least twice a year once settled. Some of them have even bloomed 3 or 4 times since last fall. I have a hunch they do not require the winter dormancy everyone tends to believe in. These ones are mostly 2nd and 3rd year plants.
I haven't tried Tennessee coneflowers yet. The only one I'm familiar with is called "Rocky Top"...I think. I would like to try them at some point. The first two years I was kind of focused on trying to grow as many of the different colors as possible. I'd love to see what your creation looks like. Any Echinacea with a green cone is very admired by me.
The only thing that makes Echinacea "Hope" a special coneflower is its affiliation with the Susan G Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. It's kind of an awkward looking Coneflower with its oversized cone and short petals. I thought mine hadn't wintered over and forgot about it. By the time I got back to pulling it out a few weeks later it had taken off. I decided just to let it be happy.
Regards,
Jon