JUNE IS PERENNIAL GARDEN MONTH and ECHINACEA (CONEFLOWER) IS MY CHOSEN PERENNIAL TO HIGHLIGHT
LET’S GO CONE CRAZY!!!
Most people who come into the garden center will ask for coneflower and not use the botanical name, Echinacea. So, I will continue this pattern with this blog.
Every perennial has its own personality and requires different care. This is certainly the case with coneflowers. At this time, we must have over a dozen different varieties of coneflower for you to see and marvel at with all the different, beautiful, colorful flowers. Coneflowers begin blooming in June and will continue to bloom until frost without the need to deadhead. The flower has a spiny central disk that is surrounded by colorful flower petals. It is this spiny disk that protects it from deer damage. So, those of you that live in deer country, coneflower is a must perennial.
Coneflowers are a very tolerant plant of our hot summer days. They are herbaceous flowering plants in the daisy family and are a very hardy perennial all along eastern and central North America. They want to be in as much sun as possible and are drought tolerant. Please, be careful with watering and let them dry between waterings. From my experience, more avid gardeners will kill coneflowers with overwatering than by any other cause.
For those of you who are more interested in planting native plants, the purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) is native to our region. It has a large spiny center, surrounded by pinkish-purple flower petals. Besides being a native plant, these coneflowers support our valuable bee population.
Have I given you enough information to encourage you to plant coneflowers? Stop by The Great Big Greenhouse & Meadows Farms Nurseries and marvel at our selection of coneflowers that we have to offer and you will see why I chose them as my perennial highlight for June.
“THERE ARE NO HAPPIER FOLKS THAN PLANT LOVERS AND NONE MORE GENEROUS THAN THOSE WHO GARDEN.” Ernest Wilson
PLANT A LITTLE HAPPINESS!!